About the Contributors
I (Eliza McClenagan) am a graduate student in the Holocaust Studies stream of the MA program in Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria, which I started after completing a BA in English and History. Last year, I helped digitize the Fred Preuss collection at the UVic archives and feel very fortunate to have had this opportunity to assist in creating and designing an exhibit about part of Fred’s life. I decided to focus on discussing citizenship in relation to his life, in part to try and understand what citizenship actually “gives” a person. What Fred faced in Nazi Germany demonstrates that the rights due to citizens are not always as unassailable as they might appear.
Jennie Preuss is the younger daughter of Fred Preuss. In the mid-1990s she interviewed her father about his childhood and early adulthood in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). Born in 1912, Fred experienced the rise of the Nazis as a young adult before immigrating to the US in 1938. The transcript of those interviews, along with other documents and photographs, became the basis of Remembering, which this exhibit draws on.
Karl Preuss (Jennie’s husband, who took Fred’s last name upon marrying Jennie) assisted with the process of creating Remembering and this exhibit. Karl earned a doctorate in modern European history, including a year as a Fulbright-Hays student at the University of Bonn.
We also want to acknowledge the efforts of Marianna Gallegos Dupris, University of Victoria Holocaust Studies student, who worked with Jennie and Karl on the creation of Remembering; Andrea Van Noord, co-founder of the Victoria Holocaust and World War II Memory Archive, who assisted Ms. Gallegos; and a special thank you to Dr. Helga Thorson for her support of Remembering and ongoing dedication to teaching about the Holocaust.