Genealogies of Memory 2020
The Holocaust between Global and Local Perspectives
International Online Conference, November 2020
Due to the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus epidemic, we have decided to introduce a new conference format. In November 2020, we will organise eight online sessions instead of a traditional conference.
The aim of the conference is to assess the current state of Holocaust memory research. The context for this is, on the one hand, the globalisation and universalisation of the meaning of the Holocaust and, on the other, the more recently postulated empirical turn in Holocaust (memory) studies, towards primary texts and sources as well as local spaces and materialities (e.g. forensic studies, environmental Holocaust studies), or the use of a grounded research perspective with regard to Holocaust memory and education.
We want to discuss the interplay between the universal (global, transnational) scale of Holocaust memory and that anchored in the endemic space and culture of historical experience (local, ethnic, national). We are interested in the influences between the diverse mnemonic scales, including both mutual inspiration and conceptual misuses: thus the question of the ontological and ethical limits of mnemonic universalisation, on the one hand, and of micro contextualisation of memories on the other.
A post-conference publication is planned in the form of a collected volume by a prestigious international academic publisher.
The conference also aims at strengthening academic exchange, in particular by creating opportunities for young scholars to network with more established researchers and academics.
Organisational information:
The conference will be organised as a series of online sessions broadcast on YouTube and Facebook, with the following schedule:
4 November 2020, 15:00–18:50 hrs. CET (Wednesday) – Session One
5 November 2020, 15:00–18:30 hrs. CET (Thursday) – Session Two
10 November 2020, 15:00–18:30 hrs. CET (Tuesday) – Session Three
12 November 2020, 15:00–18:30 hrs. CET (Thursday) – Session Four
18 November 2020, 15:00–18:30 hrs. CET (Wednesday) – Session Five
19 November 2020, 15:00–18:30 hrs. CET (Thursday) – Session Six
25 November 2020, 15:00–18:30 hrs. CET (Wednesday) – Session Seven
26 November 2020, 15:00–17:00 hrs. CET (Thursday) – Session Eight: roundtable discussion
Please note that all times are indicated according to Warsaw time, i.e. Central European Time (UTC+1:00).
The conference sessions will be recorded and published online.It will be possible to include presentations in Prezi, PowerPoint and other formats in the online sessions.
The conference language is English.
In case of any questions, please contact the event's coordinator at: genealogies@enrs.eu
The application of proposals has been closed.
People
Conference Committee:
▪ Małgorzata Pakier, ENRS (Convenor); Małgorzata Wosińska (Convenor)
▪ Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper (Warsaw University), Lior Inbar (The Ghetto Fighters' House Museum), Adam Kerpel-Fronius (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), Audrey Kichelewski (Mémorial de la Shoah), Tamás Kovács (Holocaust Memorial Center), Béla Rásky (Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies), Roma Sendyka (Jagiellonian University), Hanna Węgrzynek (Warsaw Ghetto Museum), Zofia Wóycicka (German Historical Institute)
▪ Gábor Danyi, ENRS (Project Coordinator)
Programme
Genealogies 2020
04/11/2020 15:00-18:50 CET*
Session 1. Practical Ethics of Holocaust Memory in the 21st Century
Official Opening
Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS), Małgorzata Wosińska – Introduction to the conference
Key-note speech
Remembrance in – and for – the 21st Century
Panel Presentations
The Roma and the Holocaust: Memory between Recognition and Redistribution
Olof Bortz (EHESS, Paris)
Raul Hilberg: A Holocaust Scholar and Agent of Holocaust Memory
Kimberly Redding (Carroll University, Waukesha)
Local Journalists, Distant Genocides and Global Bystanders
Jana Sayantani (University of Southern California, Los Angeles)
Mass Violence and Silenced Memory: A Comparative Study of the November Pogrom of 1938 in Berlin and the Great Calcutta Killings in 1946
Chair: Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS)
Commentary: Ferenc Laczó (Maastricht University)
Read the abstracts and bios
05/11/2020 15:00-18:30 CET*
Session 2. The Ringelblum Archive as the Earliest Historiography of the Holocaust and its Impact on International Research (The Jewish Historical Institute)
Key-note speech
Genocide from Below: Rewriting the Holocaust as First-Person Local History
Panel Presentations
The Ringelblum Archive as a Global Text
Katarzyna Person (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw)
Gender-Specific Violence in the Documents of the Ringelblum Archive
Luiza Nader (Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw)
Testimony as a Witness. Visual Artworks from the Ringelblum Archive
Video Presentation
Photography of the Hungarian Labour Service
Chair: Paweł Śpiewak (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw)
Commentary: Audrey Kichelewski (Strasbourg University), Roma Sendyka (Jagiellonian University, Cracow)
Read the abstracts and bios
10/11/2020 15:00-18:30 CET*
Session 3. Borderland Memories in Europe. Renegotiating Holocaust Remembrance
Key-note speech
Forgetting by Remembering: On the Europeanisation of Local Memories of the Shoah
Panel Presentations
The Holocaust and the Rescue of the Macedonian Jews: Communist and Post-Communist Cinematic Perspectives
Anna Chebotarova (University of St. Gallen)
Holocaust Memory and Antisemitic Attitudes in Contemporary Ukraine
Nadja Danglmaier (University of Klagenfurt), Daniel Wutti (University College of Teacher Education Carinthia)
Remembrance Culture in Border Regions – Towards an Inclusive, Cross-Border Memory
Ida Richter (Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies, Berlin-Brandenburg)
The Entanglement of the Holocaust with Human Rights: The Case of Raoul Wallenberg’s Early Reception
Chair: Gábor Danyi (ENRS)
Commentary: Zofia Wóycicka (German Historical Institute, Warsaw)
Read the abstracts and bios
12/11/2020 15:00-18:30 CET*
Session 4. Overlooking the Local Dimensions of the Holocaust. Language and the Cultural/Spatial Politics of Transmission (Jagiellonian University)
Key-note speech
Local Addresses in Holocaust Diaries: Reconstructing the Lifeworlds of Young Jewish Diarists in Vilnius
Panel Presentations
The Felicitous Duplicity of Mistranslation in One of the Outtakes from Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah
Roma Sendyka (Jagiellonian University, Kraków), Magda Heydel (Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
Regaining the Voices of Bystanders in Lanzmann’s Shoah
Sue Vice (University of Sheffield), Dominic Williams (Northumbria University, UK)
Local and Symbolic Space in Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah Outtakes
Peter Davies (University of Edinburgh)
Knowledge, Testimony, Translation: Interpreters at the First Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial
Video Presentation
In Search of Local Memory of the Holocaust in Poland. The Case of Commemorating Jewish Communities in Small Towns
Chair: Zofia Wóycicka (German Historical Institute, Warsaw)
Commentary: Tomasz Łysak (University of Warsaw)
Read the abstracts and bios
18/11/2020 15:00-18:30 CET*
Session 5. Forensic Environments of the Holocaust and its Memory
Key-note speech
The Environmental History of the Holocaust: Chances and Challenges
Panel Presentations
The Material Memory of the Sobibór Death Camp in Private and Familial Spaces
Johanna Lehr (Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, Paris)
The Collective Forgetting of the Jews who Died in the Drancy Internment Camp
Katarzyna Maja Grzybowska (Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
Human and Non-Human Transmission of Memory: a Case Study of Local Memory of Krępiecki Forest
Nastassya Ferns (University of California, Davis), Diane L. Wolf (University of California, Davis)
Accessing Trauma on Demand: The Holographic Holocaust Survivor and Digital Bodies of Violence
Chair: Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper (University of Warsaw)
Commentary: Małgorzata Wosińska
Read the abstracts and bios
19/11/2020 15:00-18:30 CET*
Session 6. Translation and Travel of Holocaust Memory between Europe and Israel
Key-note speech
The Vanishing Body of the Witness: Transmission of the Shoah in a Digital Generation
Panel Presentations
Migratory Reimaginations: Postmemorial Work of Israeli Migrants to Germany
Weronika Romanik (Göttingen Institute of Advanced Study)
Transformations of Memory in the Microperspective: The Hebrew Editions of Writings from the Underground Archive of the Bialystok Ghetto
Liat Steir-Livny (Sapir College and The Open University, Israel)
Eva.Stories: A New Dimension of Holocaust Memory on Instagram: Between the Universal and the Local
Lea Ganor (Mashmaut Center, Kiryat Motzkin – Bar Ilan University)
Practices of Remembering and Oblivion: Life Stories of Holocaust-Survivor Aircrew Members in the Israeli Air Force: A Case Study
Lior Inbar (The Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, Beit Lohamei Haghetaot)
The Ghetto Fighters’ House Archives in Israel 1950–2020
Video Presentation
Ecologies of Memory: Translating Memorial Books across Time and Place
Chair: Hanna Węgrzynek (Warsaw Ghetto Museum)
Commentary: Anna Sommer Schneider (Georgetown University, Washington, DC)
Read the abstracts and bios
25/11/2020 15:00-18:30 CET*
Session 7. Holocaust Memory: Diagnosing the Global Effect
Key-note speech
Mnemonics and its Discontents: Between Integration and Contestation
Panel Presentations
‘Critical Relativisation’ as a Mnemonic Nexus. On the Global Confluence of the Holocaust and (Post-)Colonial Memories
Josefine Honke (University of Konstanz)
The Ambivalence of ‘Glocal’ Memories Online: Holocaust Survivors as Archetypes for the Depiction of ‘German Victims’ in YouTube Videos
Danielle Lucksted (Stony Brook University, New York)
Diffusion of ‘Global’ Memory Norms on the Local Level: Implications for Poland and Beyond
Agnieszka Wierzcholska (Freie Universität, Berlin)
The Holocaust in Poland: How to Research the Local in an Increasingly Globalised Field of Scholarship?
Video Presentation
The Limits of Cosmopolitan Memory. Transnational Memory Work in Schindler’s Factory in Cracow, Poland
Ximena Goecke (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)
Chilean-Jewish Holocaust Survivors’ Memoirs as Transnational Literature and Transgenerational Memory
Chair: Małgorzata Wosińska
Commentary: Adam Kerpel-Fronius (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin)
Read the abstracts and bios
26/11/2020 15:00-17:00 CET*
Session 8. Holocaust Memory and Research in the 21st Century: Between the Global and the Local
Closing Roundtable Discussion
Moderation: Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS)
Read about the project
Launched in 2011, the annual conference Genealogies of Memory is one of the main projects carried out by the ENRS in cooperation with academic partners. The series helps strenghten academic exchange, in particular by creating opportunities for the younger generation of memory scholars to network with more established researchers and academics.
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Partners
