Events
Events
- Opening Event, 10-12 September 2023 (Jagiellonian University, Krakow)
- Workshop 1, 15-17 April 2024 (NIOD Amsterdam)
- Workshop 2, 3-4 December 2024 (online)
The challenge of comparison in Holocaust Studies. Concepts, methods, arguments
Even though the Holocaust was a mass crime encompassing at least sixteen countries across Europe, comparative studies on the conditions of survival and rescue are scarce. In light of the extremely different survival rates among local Jewish communities the lack of analyses that systematically explore the significance of surrounding societies as well as notions of community and citizenship in these countries is particularly striking. At the same time, the growing relevance of an understanding of the Holocaust as a regionally, nationally and transnationally unfolding social process along with the notable rise in micro-level studies of specific communities make a concerted effort to bring together and analytically link these various contexts in a more systematic way as relevant as attainable.
The workshop brought together research projects that focus on the Holocaust – or, rather particular aspects of it – in a comparative perspective, each addressing at least two countries. We discussed mainly current works-in-progress, conceptual and methodological challenges as well as arguments, narratives and limitations stemming from such comparative approaches.
For questions and further information please contact lena.obermann@uni-bielefeld.de
Programme
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2024
2:30 - 4 pm Panel 1: Comparative Perspectives on Violence and Rescue
This panel addresses theoretical, conceptual and empirical issues in comparative analyses of rescue and
survival under conditions of extreme violence, with examples drawn from across Europe.
Mark Roseman, ‘Experience and memory of survival and rescue’
Natalia Aleksiun, ‘Local landscapes of collaboration and rescue’
Mary Fulbrook, ‘Survival, rescue, and passing: a comparative approach’
Chair: Christina Morina
4:30 - 6 pm Panel 2: Concepts and Comparisons
This panel explores how focusing on broad concepts such as community, citizenship or humanitarianism might help us identify or construct meaningful comparisons across cases of survival, relief and rescue during the Holocaust and beyond.
Laura Hobson Faure, ‘Crossing Borders: Thinking about Emigration and Survival during the Holocaust in Comparative Perspective’
Michal Frankl: ‘Bringing Help to the No Man's Land. Dilemmas of Humanitarianism During the Holocaust and Beyond’
Gaëlle Fisher, ‘Individual Acts of Help and Rescue in France and Romania: Comparison and Concepts’
Chair: Margaret Comer
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2024
2:30 - 4 pm Panel 3: Personal Narratives and National Imaginations
This panel discussed analytical and narrative challenges in comparing highly diverse, albeit interrelated historical contexts during the Shoah. A particular focus was on the question how micro- and macro-level developments can be related and the potential of systematic studies of ego-documents in this respect.
Jan Burzlaff, ‘From the Bottom Up, Systematically: Comparisons in Survivor Video Testimonies’
Hana Kubátová, ‘Bridging Center and Periphery: Local Agency of Nation-Building during and after the Holocaust in Slovakia’
Christina Morina, ‘Considering the Self, the Nation, and the Other during the Holocaust. A comparative exploration of German and Dutch Bystander Diaries’
Chair: Mary Fulbrook
4:30 - 6 pm Panel 4: Comparison in Genocide and Mass Violence Research: Case Studies
This panel explores case studies from Eastern Europe that examine overlapping, conflicting, and converging violent regimes, acts, and ideologies stemming from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and local actors. How did previous and contemporary violence influence local and national re(actions) in
the Holocaust, and how did conflicting wartime experiences of violence shape later approaches to memory and contemporary violence?
Dovilė Budrytė, ‘Two Occupations, Multiple Opposing Memories: Mnemonic Conflicts in Lithuania After 1991’
Lidia Zessin-Jurek, ‘The Historikerstreit that wasn’t – The Aborted East-West Debate about the Position of the Gulag vis-à-vis the Holocaust in the European Memory (2005-2015)’
Margaret Comer, ‘Between Local and Cosmopolitan Holocaust Heritage: The Drancy 73 Convoy and Pan-European Remembrance’
Chair: Gaëlle Fisher
6:15 – 7:45 pm Round Table & Final Discussion
Ljiljana Radonić
Ido de Haan
Bob Moore
Chair: Roma Sendyka
- Workshop 3, 2025 (date TBC)
- Final Conference, Bielefeld 2025 (date TBC)