Andrea Pitzer

Join us for a powerful evening with acclaimed author/journalist Andrea Pitzer for her new book ONE LONG NIGHT: A Global History of Concentration Camps. Presented in partnership with Tulsa Artist Fellowship (TAF).

A haunting history of modernity’s greatest tragedy: concentration camps.

For over a hundred years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on Earth. First used for battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even today, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our own promise of “never again.”

In this harrowing work based on archival records and interviews during travel to four continents, Andrea Pitzer reveals for the first time the human and global story of concentration camps.

Beginning with 1890s Cuba and ending with Guantanamo today, she pinpoints camps around the world. From the Philippines and Southern Africa in the early twentieth century to the Soviet Gulag and detention camps in China and North Korea that took root during the Cold War, camp systems have been used as tools for civilian relocation, political repression, and extermination. Often justified as a measure to protect a nation, or even interned groups themselves, camps have instead served as brutal and dehumanizing sites that have claimed the lives of millions.

Drawing on exclusive testimony, landmark research, and on-site investigation, Pitzer unearths the roots of this appalling phenomenon, exploring the staggering toll of the camps: our greatest atrocities, the extraordinary survivors, and the intimate moments that have also been part of camp life during the past century.

The event is free and open to the public, and will be moderated by TAF Literary Arts Fellow Anna Badkhen. Copies of One Long Night will be available for purchasing.