Scholar to Lecture on Heroine of the German Resistance at Holy Cross

Shareen Blair Brysac, a producer, writer and director, will deliver a lecture on Monday, Nov. 20, at 4 p.m. in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center. Brysac will speak on her book, "Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the 'Red Orchestra': The Life and Death of an American Woman in Nazi Germany." Sponsored by the German department and the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies, this lecture is free and open to the public.

Brysac will lecture on the true story of Mildred Fish-Harnack, who, in joining the German resistance, became the only American woman executed for treason during World War II on personal orders from Hitler. She spent nine years resisting the Nazi regime and was guillotined in Berlin in 1943.

As a member of the resistance group, the "Red Orchestra," Fish-Harnack assisted in the escape of German Jews and political dissidents, while she documented Nazi atrocities on the Eastern Front and for years provided vital economic and military intelligence to both Washington and Moscow.

Brysac is a former producer for CBS News, responsible for the documentaries, "1968," "American Dream, American Nightmare" and "The Cowboy, the Craftsman, and the Ballerina." She is the recipient of several Emmys, a Dupont Citation, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Writers Guild Award and medals from New York and Chicago film festivals. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation and Lear's Magazines.