SPU Professor and Collaborators Recognized for Innovative Public History Project

Ottawa (Ontario), Thursday, July 2, 2020 — The Canadian Historical Association has awarded Refugee Boulevard with the Public History Group Prize, which recognizes work that advances the field of public history in Canada.

Refugee Boulevard: Making Montreal Home After the Holocaust is an innovative multimedia history project created by researchers from Dawson College, the Montreal Holocaust Museum and Saint Paul University’s Anna Sheftel, an associate professor in the School of Conflict Studies. Together, they worked with Holocaust survivors to create an oral history of resettlement in Montreal after the Second World War.

“It is an honour to have this project recognized by the Canadian Historical Association,” said Sheftel. “The collaboration between my research partners and the survivors whom we interviewed was very meaningful, and this is an important way of ensuring that survivors’ voices are heard and recognized as part of the multicultural landscape of Montreal.”

A highlight of the project is the guided audio-tour of a neighbourhood where six Holocaust survivors resettled in the late 1940s. In their own voices, survivors share stories of resettlement, socializing, food, work, dating, discrimination, as well as the obstacles and the joys inherent in making Montreal their home.

“The audio tour gives participants an approachable and interactive experience of this history,” said Sheftel. “It is a powerful experience to see a neighbourhood through the eyes of those who lived there.”

Refugee Boulevard was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership-Engage Grant.

For more information about the project, please visit: refugeeboulevard.ca

For more information, please contact:
Julie Bourassa
Communications Officer, Saint Paul University
613-236-1393, ext. 2310
jbourassa@ustpaul.ca