EHRI is proud to be co-organiser of the International Conference Public History of the Holocaust. Historical Research in the Digital Age. The other organisers are DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) and TextGrid. The event is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The conference takes place on July 9 in the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

The digital age presents challenges as well as opportunities for historians and historical collection holders. History thrives through the Internet but is also unsettled by it. As more and more citizens not only have access to data, but can also handle and present facts, data and interpretations in a way they see fit, the need for historians to engage with this new digital public becomes by working towards a new (digital) public history.

The field of history is becoming more democratized as citizens engage in documenting and analyzing the past. At the same time, new digital techniques and methodologies offer new perspectives on cooperation within the humanities and on integration of data. Research infrastructures for history can address needs both from researchers and a more general audience. They support quality representation of the past and citizen engagement in historical work.

These developments are especially relevant for the history of the Holocaust, which has never been an exclusively academic undertaking. Today Holocaust studies continue to have a manifest public dimension. The Internet has created a new public space where experts and a general audience can converge to write and analyse history together and history truly becomes public history.

An international conference in Berlin for researchers and policymakers will cover the challenges for historical research on the Holocaust in the age of the Internet and the possibilities of meeting these challenges through new forms of digital research infrastructures.

Read more about the conference on www.ehri-project.eu/public-history-holocaust. 

As we had some cancellations, there are now places available again (28 June 2013). Please feel free to register.