fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Holiday Gift Subscription
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

The Other Pakistan

by Violet Snow
August 25, 2014
in Community
0
Dr. Kate and Dr. Hermann Selzer in Rome, 1935
Dr. Kate and Dr. Hermann Selzer in Rome, 1935

Hazel Kahan was born in Lahore, Pakistan, the daughter of two Jewish physicians who fled Europe in 1937 to escape burgeoning anti-Semitism. Forty years after leaving the city of her youth, Kahan felt compelled to return to Lahore and find the house where she had grown up.

Kahan will narrate “The Other Pakistan,” the story of her parents’ exile, including a five-year camp internment by the British, her life in Lahore, and her going back, complete with photos and film, at the Woodstock Library on Saturday, August 16, at 5 p.m. Her talk will illuminate the cosmopolitan flourishing of Lahore in the 40s and 50s, as well as the efforts of idealistic young professionals who are rebuilding their country after massive flooding in 2010 and 2012.

“Lahore was always my home town, even though I had no normal cultural connections to the place where I was born,” she explained. “But I had a profound emotional attachment. My parents had a thriving medical practice there and a wonderful relationship with the Muslims, who were much more secular than now. They described us as ‘people of the book,’ with no political component, until after [Israel’s] Six-Day War. Suddenly my parents were thought of as Zionist spies, and it became so unpleasant, they had to leave. They went to Israel and died there.”

In 1933, Hitler decreed that Jews were not allowed to study medicine in Germany. Dr. Kate and Dr. Hermann Selzer met in Rome while training for their medical degrees. When the Hitler-Mussolini alliance made a medical practice unfeasible for them in Europe, Hermann went exploring. While visiting what was then British India, he cured a leg infection of the son of a prominent woman in Lahore, and she urged him to set up a clinic in the city. Kate soon joined him, and their practice prospered.

Hazel was born in 1939. Although she spent much of her childhood in boarding schools in England and India, she kept returning to the house in Lahore until the family left, when she was 32. She married and lived in England, Australia, and Israel, obtaining a doctorate in psychology in the U.S.

When her father died in 2007, she read through his voluminous writings. “He had documented our lives,” she recalled. “My mother had kept all my letters from boarding school. I felt an imperative to go back and see if it was what I remembered.”

The visit was fruitful. Her parents’ former clinic had become a cultural institute, where she met two women, Shireen Pasha and Rashida Raza, who were working on a film about Lahore when it was a vibrant cultural center in the years after World War II, echoing its historic role as a fertile crossroads. Kahan provided material about her parents and a voiceover for the short film. She went on to collaborate with the women on a documentary about the flood recovery process in villages around Lahore. Working independently from the government, young architects are helping to rebuild while laying the groundwork for what Kahan calls “an entirely new grass-roots-driven socio-economic system and movement.”

Kahan, who had a successful career in marketing research, now lives on the North Fork of Long Island, where she writes, creates art, and hosts two radio shows on local and international events.

Hazel Kahan will present “The Other Pakistan” on Saturday, August 16, at 5 p.m. at the Woodstock Library, 5 Library Lane. For more information on her work, see https://hazelkahan.com/.

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Dan Winfield cops swimming medal at Masters’ World Championships in Montreal

Next Post

Cioni sale: Bids close, post-purchase rental terms not so

Violet Snow

Violet Snow wrote regularly for the Woodstock Times for 17 years and continues to contribute to Hudson Valley One. She has been published in the New York Times “Disunion” blog, Civil War Times, American Ancestors, Jewish Currents, and many other periodicals. An excerpt from her historical novel, To March or to Marry, has appeared in the feminist journal Minerva Rising. She lives in Phoenicia and is currently working with horses, living out her childhood dream.

Related Posts

Inaugural Snow Moon Festival brightens February darkness in Saugerties
Community

Inaugural Snow Moon Festival brightens February darkness in Saugerties

February 6, 2023
YMCA bike repair training class returns to Kingston
Community

YMCA bike repair training class returns to Kingston

February 6, 2023
The equinox and the Harvest Moon
Community

Saugerties Snow Moon parade postponed until Sunday due to weather

February 4, 2023
Visit Kingston’s 12,240-square-foot squat, centrally located with wood-burning fireplace
Community

Visit Kingston’s 12,240-square-foot squat, centrally located with wood-burning fireplace

February 3, 2023
Saugerties to host inaugural Snow Moon Festival February 3 to 5
Community

Saugerties to host inaugural Snow Moon Festival February 3 to 5

February 2, 2023
Not-So-Sweet Fundraiser returns to Saugerties Animal Shelter
Community

Not-So-Sweet Fundraiser returns to Saugerties Animal Shelter

February 1, 2023
Next Post

Cioni sale: Bids close, post-purchase rental terms not so

Trending News

  • Saugerties to host inaugural Snow Moon Festival February 3 to 5 2k views
  • Visit Kingston’s 12,240-square-foot squat, centrally located with wood-burning fireplace 1.8k views
  • Neighbors protest Ulster County Veterans’ Cemetery flagpole spotlights 765 views
  • Enormous collection of historic Woodstock art opens this Saturday in New Paltz 715 views
  • Dog rescued from Wallkill River’s icy grip 661 views
  • Controversy ensues as KCSD walks back Black History Month opt out language 587 views

Weather

Kingston
◉
25°
Sunny
7:01 am5:18 pm EST
Feels like: 25°F
Wind: 3mph WSW
Humidity: 61%
Pressure: 30.37"Hg
UV index: 1
WedThuFri
48/27°F
39/37°F
55/30°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Holiday Gift Subscription

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing