Alison Frank Johnson

This project investigates the cooperation between historians, church leaders, theologists, journalists, and local activists in Austria, the United States, and Germany to remove the traces of medieval blood libel legends from churches in Central Europe. It extends existing scholarship on the resurrection of medieval blood libel in modern Austria into the post-WW2 period, showing how public displays of human remains retained visual memories of those earlier stories. Most importantly, it outlines the process by which men and women outside and inside the Catholic church worked together to change local traditions and translate the broad fight antisemitism, forging unlikely partnerships across religious and political differences, and between the United States and Austria.