Making Holocaust Research Projects and Infrastructures Sustainable by Using Digital Archives, Electronic Repositories, and Internet Platforms on Local and Regional Levels | 19-20 November 2018 | Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, Vienna, Austria

The workshop “Transnational Meets Local” is being organised by EHRI Partner the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) project, supported by the European Commission.

This two-day workshop invites stakeholders who maintain digital platforms, repositories, and databases, or have developed internet-based curricula, exhibitions, and presentations on specific research projects and/or case-studies in Holocaust Studies. Focussing on current questions of digital archival collections in Central Europe, the aim of the workshop will be to discuss and develop policies and procedures on organisational and legal levels concerning the transnationalisation of Holocaust research networks and archives. The workshop is directed at a wider public, bringing local approaches and regional aspects of current usages of Holocaust-related sources to the fore. The linkage of these local approaches to other projects from Central Europe will enable the creation of a network of and for these initiatives, transcending the ethnic, linguistic, and/or national borders which until now have represented an obstacle in opening spaces for innovative approaches.

First part

The first part of the workshop will focus not only on methodological, epistemological, and ethical questions emerging from the transition from the analogue to the digital, but also on the challenges of harmonisation in areas related to digital research technologies and standards, including the complex processes of dissemination. The first day will centre on the question of how the resources and infrastructure of EHRI projects can be made sustainable and expanded with the help of local projects and scholars, as well as through shared digital platforms.

Second part

The second part of the workshop will concentrate on current educational programmes, curriculum developments, and local interventions which produce or re/use historical sources. To this end, we will invite Austrian and Central European stakeholders, archivists, educators, curators, and facilitators to discuss the sustainability of their projects, as well as the possibilities of future expansion into the field of contemporary history and Holocaust Studies. At the end of the workshop, we will invite the former and current protagonists of the Mauthausen testimony archive as an Austrian ‘flagship’ initiative to discuss their policies and procedures, for example the legal restrictions arising from privacy legislation.

Read the Call including a Preliminary Programme.

Practical information:

The deadline for applications is September 1, 2018. The selection process aims at making up a balanced group of participants equally made of researchers, archivists and stakeholders. We invite applications for the international EHRI-Seminar. An application package consists of:

• A curriculum vitae (maximum 2 pages)
• A letter of motivation with reasons for attending this workshop (maximum 1 page)

Please send the application package to cfp@vwi.ac.at by September 1, 2018.