Holocaust Studies in the Digital Age. What’s New?

Date: Tuesday, 2 July 2019

Location: Stedelijk Museum, Museumplein 10, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The conference takes place in the Auditorium of the museum. 

Duration: 9.15  –  18.30

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED. If you would like to be on our waiting list, please contact  info@ehri-project.eu. For more information about the topics that will be discussed, please see the the speakers and abstracts overview.

Holocaust studies: academic and public

Holocaust Studies is a dynamic multidisciplinary research field that is dedicated to the Holocaust itself but also includes aspects of the post-Holocaust world such as memory, human rights, Jewish life or international relations. At the same time, the research field has a manifest public dimension. To examine these diverse and intertwined dimensions, EHRI organizes two conferences in July 2019. This conference Holocaust Studies in the Digital Age is an expert meeting, dealing with academic topics, and will cater to a professional audience working in related fields, while Holocaust Studies and its Social Setting on 3 July in Pakhuis de Zwijger explores the impact of academic research on society at large. This conference also marks the conclusion of the second phase of the EHRI project (for more information, visit the conference webpage). 

Digital transformation

In recent years digital practices have had a profound effect on Holocaust Studies. From its start in 2010 the European Holocaust Research infrastructure (EHRI) has not only been stimulating, but also monitoring and studying this development (in e.g. conferences and workshops). Against this backdrop the upcoming conference Holocaust Studies in the Digital Age, What’s New?, organized by EHRI and the NIOD, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, will explore how digital technology influences contemporary Holocaust research in its broadest sense. Is the research field undergoing a digital transition that profoundly changes its nature? We will take stock of the contemporary effects of the ‘digital turn’ by discussing three interrelated themes:

• Digital representations as research tools
• Digital collaboration in Holocaust Studies
• Remembrance as an obligation in the digital age

By connecting these three topics, we aim to explore new directions, challenges and opportunities for Holocaust research in the digital age. Each theme will be introduced by a keynote speaker. To elaborate on these topics, nine scholars in the field have been selected to present their research. At the end of each session, the audience is invited to discuss the topics with the speakers.  You are invited to join us in Amsterdam at our venue Stedelijk Museum on 2 July 2019. Attendance is free, but registration is mandatory. For more information about speakers and to read available abstracts of presentations, please see the speakers and abstracts overview.

Programme

09.15 – 10.00 Coffee and registration

10.00 – 10.10 Introduction by Martijn Eickhoff (NIOD, EHRI)

10.10 – 12.00 Session I Digital representations as research tools

Chair: Kees Ribbens (NIOD / Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Visualisations of the spatial dimensions of the Holocaust are among the most eye-catching digital developments in Holocaust Studies. In this session we question how, or to what extent, these visualisations also function as research tools that assist in the revision of old insights and in the development of new research questions.

10.10 – 10.35 Keynote: Digital Representations as Research Tools: The Experience of Geographies of the Holocaust: Tim Cole (University of Bristol)

Presentations

• 10.35 – 10.55 The Danish Jews in Theresienstadt: Topography and Memory – Therkel Straede and Pelle Mose Hansen (University of Southern Denmark, Odense)
• 10.55 – 11.15 The Arolsen Archives e-Guide: turning users into active explorers of Holocaust-related documents – Christiane Weber (Arolsen Archives, Bad Arolsen)
• 11.15 – 11.35 Geographies of accountability: the United Nations War Crimes Commission archives and wartime complementarity –  Leah Owen and Dan Plesch (SOAS University of London)

11.35 – 12.00 Discussion

12.00 – 13.15 LUNCH at Brasserie Keyzer, Van Baerlestraat 96

13.15 – 15.00 Session II Digital collaboration in Holocaust Studies

Chair: Susan Hogervorst (Open University, Rotterdam)

The field of Holocaust Studies currently witnesses the emergence of creative and digital industries that support more traditional (often state-funded) cultural and research institutions in order to extend their societal outreach with new digital communication tools. As a result, audiences become more and more active stakeholders that play a significant role in the study and memorialisation of the Holocaust. In this session we analyse and discuss how these developments affect the field of Holocaust Studies.

13.15 – 13.40 Keynote: Re-Imagining the Team: Holocaust Research and Education in a Distributed Age: Michael Haley Goldman (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum).

Presentations

• 13.40 – 14.00 Nuremberg Project at Harvard Law School – Judith Haran (Harvard Law School)
• 14.00 – 14.20 Integration of Names from testimonies into Yad Vashem’s Central Names Database: USC Shoah Foundation case study – Olga Tolokonsky (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem)
• 14.20 – 14.40 The neutral point of view and the black hole of Auschwitz: Crowdsourcing the history of the Holocaust on Wikipedia – Mariella Bastian and Mykola Makhortykh (University of Amsterdam)

14.40 – 15.00 Discussion

15.00 – 15.30 TEA BREAK

15.30 – 17.15 Session III – Remembrance as an obligation in the digital age

Chair: Karel Berkhoff (NIOD-EHRI, EHRI Project director )

Long-standing questions such as “do we have an obligation to remember the Holocaust?”, “why may such an obligation exist?” and “how can it best be fulfilled?” have recently found fresh and unexpected impulses from the digital turn in Holocaust Studies. In this session we discuss to what extent this digital turn has created new ethical and legal challenges for researchers. Which standards and strategies are developed in this context?

15.30 – 15.55 Keynote: Debunking Digital Myths: Holocaust Memory for the Future – Victoria Walden (University of Sussex).

Presentations

• 15.55 – 16.15 Combating collective amnesia: digital heritage and the Channel Islands – Gilly Carr (University of Cambridge)
• 16.15 – 16.35 Collecting and Digitizing Holocaust Photography in Hungary– András Lénart (National Széchényi Library, Budapest)
• 16.35 – 16.55 The Forgotten Quarter. An Interactive Model as an Element Restoring the Memory of the Łódź Ghetto – Andrzej Grzegorczyk (Radegast Station Museum, Łódź)

16.55 – 17.15 Discussion

17.15 – 17.25 Closing remarks by Martijn Eickhoff

17.25 – 18.30 RECEPTION

REGISTRATION FORM

For questions, contact info@ehri-project.eu.

For more information about speakers and to read available abstracts of presentations, please see the speakers and abstracts overview.

Image: Map of Budapest: Potential for interaction: Victim, Perpetrator, Bystander. Click here for a larger image. © Alberto Giordano and Tim Cole.