You can read about previous EHRI workshops and their results in the e-Newsletter for Experts in Holocaust Documentation.

Geography and Holocaust Research

27-29 May 2013: An International Workshop at the International Tracing Service (ITS), Bad Arolsen, Germany

Within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure

The overall objective of the EHRI experts' workshop is to generate a creative exchange of knowledge and views between experts in various methodological subfields of Holocaust research and documentation.

Geographic aspects of events and processes, landscape, environment, traffic routes, and more all impacted on plans and actions in the context of the Holocaust. The examination of geographic characteristics and the application of geographical methods to historical research of the Holocaust are, of course, not new. New technologies and interdisciplinary approaches, however, provide new and additional methods to convey and visualise relationships between paremeters that affected the sequence of actvities and events throughout history.

Participants are invited to present their findings and projects that focus on, in particular, the use of geographical components of interdisciplinary research in the context of the Holocaust. These findings and projects should either pertain directly to Holocaust research or should present an impetus for the integration of geographical methodologies into historical research in general. Hence the Call for Papers is directed to historians and archivists, as well as geographers and representatives of related disciplines.

The planned EHRI archives and research portal will enable researchers to obtain knowledge about Holocaust-related fonds and collections in archives all over Europe. Widely scattered documents can be virtually rearranged according to their original provenances and material pertaining to specific topics can be brought together by interested researchers on their virtual desks. The conjunction of sources of information and of information intself about events, persons and locations in the context of the Holocaust is partly conditioned by the necessity of illustrating historical and actual geographic relationships which extend to the whole of Europe. Therefore, tools for evaluating geographic information and the content and technological facilities provided by an online portal such as EHRI should get special attention.

This workshop will serve as a venue for representatives of various scientific disciplines to exchange ideas, with the goal of providing new incentives for Holocaust research, specifically in the application of geographical methods to the study of the Holocaust.

Proposals are now invited for individual presentations or participation in round table discussions. This workshop will be conducted in English.

Read more about this workshop and participation >> Call for Papers. The deadline for submissions of proposals is December 31st, 2012. This call is now closed.

Early Attempts at the Historical Documentation of the Holocaust

27-28 November 2012: An International Workshop at the Holocaust Memorial Center, Budapest, Hungary

Within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure

The overall objective of the EHRI experts' workshops is to generate a creative exchange of knowledge and views between experts in various methodological subfields of Holocaust research and documentation. Participants are invited to present their findings pertaining to the early attempts to document the mass destruction of European Jews during WWII in a comparative perspective.

The overall aim of EHRI, to connect and to make accessible Holocaust-related archival material, raises the principal issue of the origins of these collections. In order to understand the structure, contents, and historical value of the sources preserved in European archives and other documentation centers, we must explore who created these collections and how they were created: what were the political circumstances, resources and motivations surrounding these early documentary projects. The workshop aims to provide a comparative perspective on early Jewish and non-Jewish documentary projects, including historical commissions that collected documents and conducted interviews with Holocaust survivors. The significance of this theme lies in discussing the archives not as definite, stable and objective sets of documents, but as (partly) constructed entities.

Proposals are now invited for individual presentations or participation in round table discussions.

Read more about this workshop and participation >> Call for Papers. This call is now closed.

The workshop is planned to coincide in topic and timing with the annual Simon Wiesenthal Conference of EHRI partner the Wiener Wiesenthal Institute (VWI) entitled Before the Holocaust had its name. Early Confrontations of the Nazi Mass Murder of the Jews, taking place in Vienna on November 29 - December 1, 2012. >> www.vwi.ac.at

 Truth and Witness

30 April - 2 May 2012: An International Workshop on Holocaust Testimonies

Within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure

We would like to invite you to an international workshop to be held at The Wiener Library, London, in April/May 2012 on Holocaust Testimonies.

Written and oral testimonies of Holocaust survivors, along with personal documentation such as letters and diaries, can provide information and details otherwise unavailable in the numerous official sources concerning the persecution and murder of the Jews. Consequently, the use of these sources has both practical and ethical imperatives - testimony can add telling details, and it can also allow the individual characters of the victims to emerge. However, the many survivor testimonies that are now available have all been collected at different times, and often in very different contexts. This can make them problematic and challenging when used as a source of historical evidence.

This workshop will focus on some core issues currently facing researchers, archivists and scholars across all disciplines and collection-holding institutions. In reviewing some of the many testimony collections and works undertaken in the past 65 years, we hope to reflect on the content, structure and form of the survivor testimonies.

Read more about this workshop and participation >> Call for Papers. This call is now closed.

The Holocaust and the (Digital) Photographic Documentation

19-21 September 2011: International Workshop at NIOD, Amsterdam

Within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure

The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) intends to organize an international expert meeting in which the place of photography in historical research of the Holocaust will be discussed. The meeting aims to comibine the growing academic interest in photography with the increasing digitisation and opening up of photographic archives. The overall aim is to generate a creative exchange between researchers on the many aspects of the photographic representation of the Holocaust. Archivists of picture collections and e-scientists will be invited to discuss how EHRI can fulfill its purpose of creating a European research infrastructure, focussing on the photographic represenatation of the Holocaust.

Researchers and experts working in the fields described in this call are invited to submit proposals for papers to be discussed at the expert meeting. The deadline will be June 1st 2011. Everyone who has submitted a proposal will be notified about acceptance or refusal by July 1st 2011.

Please click here to view the Call for Papers. This call is now closed.

'Recording the Names'

4-6 July 2011: International Workshop for Names Computerization Experts

Within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI)

The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem is the Jewish People's memorial to each and every Jew that perished in the Holocaust.

Between 3 and 6 July 2011 Yad Vashem in Israel will host the first of many EHRI workshops that are open to participants from outside the consortium. For 'Recording the Names' Yad Vashem intends to invite about twenty representatives from different institutions that deal with computerization of the names of Naze vitcims to participate in this international workshop.

Read more and view the programme. This call is now closed.

16 November 2010: Launch Event of EHRI

EHRI was formally launched in the presence of high level European politicians and representatives of the relevant communities in the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels, Belgium, on 16 November 2010. Now the project, which will take 4 years to complete, has officially started.

Programme of the launch of EHRI, the project

• 13.30-14.00 Reception
• 14.00-16.00:
• Opening Dr. Michal Frankl, chair, Jewish Museum of Prague
• Mrs. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science
• Mr. Gideon Sa'ar, Minister of Education, Israel
• Mr. Halbe Zijlstra, State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science, The Netherlands
• Mr. Guido Peruzzo, Ambassador Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany
• Mr. Nathan Ramet, The Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, Belgium
• Prof. dr. Peter Longerich, Royal Holloway, University of London (read speech)
• Dr. Michal Frankl interviews: Dr. Sheila Anderson, Director of the Centre for e-Research of King's College, London, and Dr. Conny Kristel, Project Director EHRI, NIOD. Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Netherlands
• Prof. dr. Jerzy Holzer, Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences (read speech)
• Official launch, Introducing EHRI
• 16.00-17.00 Drinks