Combined workshop EHRI, Yerusha and 'Frontier of Memory' project

30-31 March, 2015, Jewish Museum in Prague

The workshop aims to recapitulate and evaluate the state of archival documentation of Jewish history and of the Holocaust in the Czech Republic and to discuss the cooperation and synergies with the ongoing international projects. It will engage professionals from regional and central archives, from specialised Jewish and Holocaust archives and from European research infrastructures, as well as historians, from the Czech Republic and from abroad. The workshop will disseminate knowledge about the international research infrastructures and will engage Czech archivists in an open discussion about the best ways of cooperation.

The workshop is a part of three inter-connected archival research projects implemented by the Jewish Museum in Prague:

• European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) which builds an extensive portal integrating data sets about Holocaust-related collections in Europe (www.ehri-project.eu)
• Yerusha project by the Rothschild Foundation which conducts a survey of collections related to Jewish history (www.yerusha.eu)
• Frontier of Memory. Documentation of names and fates of Holocaust victims from Sudetenland, funded by the Claims Conference

The following sessions and/or topics are anticipated:

Lectures about the state of research and research needs in the field of Jewish history and the Holocaust in the Czech Republic in the connection to the archival science

Presentation of European Holocaust Research Infrastructure and Yerusha projects

• EHRI project, gathering information of Holocaust related archival collections and fonds, EHRI portal, including a practical session for users
• Terezín Research Guide (EHRI)
• Yerusha and gathering Jewish related archival collections and fonds in Europe
• Discussion about the effect of international projects on work of Czech archives and possible synergies

Documentation of Holocaust victims and Czech archives

• State of the documentation of the names and fates of Holocaust victims from the Czech Republic, presentation of outcomes
• Possible use of databases of Holocaust victims for cataloguing of archival material
• Discussion about methods of names documentation of Jews from Sudetenland
• Projects, “constructed” archives, digitization

The Terezín Album project, Terezín Initiative Institute (TBC)

• Documentation project on Jews of Ostrava
• Documentation in the Jewish Museum in Prague
• Copying and further fate of Holocaust related archival resources in US Holocaust Memorial Museum and in Yad Vashem

Archival fonds and collections as information source for Jewish history in the Czech lands 1848 – 1945

• Round table discussion about types of archival sources for Jewish history and the Holocaust in the Czech Lands, research possibilities and methodology, their processing and accessibility

The workshop will be simultaneously translated between Czech and English. The estimated duration is one and half days; a detailed programme will follow soon.

If you are interested to participate, please contact jarka.vitamvasova@jewishmuseum.cz before February 18, 2015.