Eyewitness Account: Two Years Under the Red Flag, 1949-1951

The Sigur Center will hold a talk with Liliane Willens as she discusses her experiences in China.

Liliane Willens was born of Russian parentage in the former French Concession of Shanghai, China where she attended a French lycee. She and her family - all stateless - experienced World War II under the Japanese military occupation, later the Chinese civil war between the Nationalist government and the communists, the arrival of the victorious People's Liberation army and subsequent establishment of the People's Republic of China. Because of difficulties to obtain an immigration visa to the United States under a very restrictive quota system, Liliane lived two years under the PRC. Liliane immigrated to the U.S. where she attended Boston University and earned her Ph. D., went on to teach at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and eventually moved to Washington DC where she worked for U.S. Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps.

Liliane will describe her first hand account of the demise of the Kuomintang, the peaceful arrival of the People's Liberation Army, the societal changes in the new government, the outbreak of the Korean War and subsequent virulent anti-American propaganda and increasing political repression.

Please RSVP at http://tinyurl.com/RedFlagDec6 by Friday, December 3.