EHRI-3 General Partner Meeting | 30 May-1 June 2023, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel

Eleven years after the first ever big EHRI General Partner Meeting was held at Yad Vashem in Israel, the EHRI-3 project returned for another gathering of representatives of today’s 27 partner institutions. Around fifty people assembled at the Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies and were welcomed by co-Project Director Karel Berkhoff and a speech given by Dani Dayan, Chairman of Yad Vashem. Karel reminded everyone about that very first meeting – quite a few people are still involved today – and also mentioned the success EHRI has had recently in securing its future as a permanent research infrastructure. The EHRI-PP project, responsible for making this happen, concluded actually on that day of the General Partner Meeting in Jerusalem. So all the work done in EHRI-3 now has an excellent sustainable future. Meanwhile, the field of Holocaust Studies is dealing with various threats, e.g. governments attacking researchers’ academic freedom, and the war in Ukraine. Karel initiated a round of applause for all those researchers and custodians of sources who are continuing their work in unjust or dangerous conditions.

After Karel, Haim Gertner of hosting partner Yad Vashem, spoke to the audience. Now Director of International Relations, Haim was involved in the concept and shaping of EHRI from the beginning. He highlighted the importance of EHRI as a forum, stressing that many people have remained with EHRI throughout the years, in part due to its social aspect. He also mentioned the importance of objects as sources that speak louder in the coming era of a world without Holocaust survivors. EHRI will continue to play an important role in ensuring history is not forgotten.

Speech Dani Dayan, Chairman of Yad Vashem

Chairman of Yad Vashem, Dani Dayan gave an emotional and motivating speech, welcoming the EHRI consortium to Yad Vashem.

Mr. Dayan related that one of the first things he did as chairman of Yad Vashem was to put a quote on the wall of his office, from the last will and testament of Gela Seksztajn¹:

It is this quote that gives strength and motivates us, he said. Yad Vashem has been created to fulfill the last will and testament of 6 million people like Gela.

Mr. Dayan continued saying, we are approaching the post-survivor era, an era that will be the happy hour for Holocaust deniers and Holocaust distortion. The importance of documentation is immeasurable as these are the testimonies of the six million. Materials will be the only witness as there will be no one left to say: “I was there.”

The Holocaust was not just the elimination of millions of people as a group; it was the assassination of millions of individuals and the erasure of tens of thousands of Jewish communities. Dani Dayan highlighted the importance of ensuring that each victim is seen as an individual human being. Archival research is so important here.

Having a stable research infrastructure -- , pan-European, including Israel and the United States, global -- is essential to the field of Holocaust research. Honoring the Righteous Among the Nations is important, Mr. Dayan said, but it cannot be the only way to remember the Holocaust. It is crucial to be narrative-, nation- and ideology-blind. The only commitment should be to the facts. It should not matter if national pride is allegedly stained, if people are embarrassed, or if the findings do not coincide with diplomatic interests.

Mr. Dayan concluded by saying that EHRI is a leader in revealing the truth, even in difficult and uncomfortable times. Yad Vashem will remain an eager partner.

After these beautiful and complimentary words, the meeting progressed to the more practical updates of the actual work that has been done in the various teams, called Work Packages.

Management and Dissemination

Karel Berkhoff (NIOD) gave a general overview, discussing various Deliverables – reports on achievements – that have been submitted or are scheduled, all on course, and recounted several accomplishments, highlighting the new, and very popular, Engaging the Educators seminar, and the tremendous uptake in fellowship applications. The first publication in the new Ukrainian track in the Document blog was written by Alexander Kruglov, the recognized founder of Holocaust Studies in Ukraine. EHRI is concluding an ever growing number of Content Provider Agreements and is producing excellent technical work, such as the Dashboard, the Geospatial Repository, and consultancy on the preservation of digital objects. In addition, EHRI’s resonance beyond academia has grown still further, the podcast being a key example.

Rachel Pistol (KCL and Wiener Holocaust Library) summed up what has happened on the Dissemination front, such as the growing social media, an updated website and the Publication Repository which has gone live. Rachel encouraged EHRI members to upload any publications related to EHRI onto the platform. The repository has been created within HAL, a peer-reviewed database that is open to all. Later in the meeting, she also presented graphs which gave an insight into the usage of several EHRI resources.

Connections and Innovations

Michal Frankl and Michala Lônčíková, from the Masaryk Institute, presented their activities in testing new approaches and digital methods in the realm of Holocaust Studies. The EHRI Dashboard will enable anyone to search through multiple EHRI platforms from one location. In the future, all EHRI services should be linked to this Dashboard. Michala mentioned the Document Blog, also highlighting the thematic series about the Holocaust in Ukraine launched in October 2022. The 80th blogpost is published. Due to the increasing input for the Document Blog (Conny Kristel Fellows in particular have been very active), new installments will be posted every three weeks, instead of monthly.

A brand new edition to the EHRI resources is the Geospatial Repository. In Holocaust Studies, there is an increasing interest in working with maps in a quick and easy manner. The repository allows the contribution and standardization of data and the creation of maps.

Rebecca Dillmeier (US Holocaust Memorial Museum), who works on new approaches to Holocaust research and archiving, talked about Deliverable 12.2 - Updated Data Management Plan. This work helps to make data accessible and reusable indefinitely. Data loss is an underestimated risk but it can be prevented by digital preservation. A pilot project has been set up to mentor institutions about data preservation. Various workshops have taken place, with a focus on interdisciplinary research, for example translating oral testimonies into data that can be used in various fields.

Katharina Freise (NIOD) is responsible for Impact, Innovation and Sustainability, a work package cutting across all activities. It also ensures that data and privacy legislations are upheld. Katharina highlighted the importance of continually finding new ways of collaborating, for instance with other research infrastructures. This will enable the growing of EHRI’s user group. The new EHRI Podcast resulted from thinking outside the box during the pandemic: alternative ways had to be created to ensure EHRI’s continued impact. Katharina detailed that the podcast focuses on objects and how these help keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. Katharina also mentioned EHRI’s growing presence in education. Through finding gaps that EHRI could potential fill, EHRI will impact this field continually. Finally, Katharina underlined that the GDPR implementation differs per country, something that can prevent working in a uniform, trans-national way and we should be aware of.

The EHRI Labs - Connecting Expertise and Archives

After a short break, the meeting continued with updates from the Work Packages that are at the front of connecting archives and other collection holders with EHRI.

This includes very small, or micro-archives that are possibly in private possession or in a forgotten corner of an institution. Sigal Arie Erez (Arolsen Archives) detailed that since the beginning of EHRI-3 in 2020, outreach has been conducted to over 200 local archives from 14 countries. However, unfolding serious engagement proved to be difficult. As a result, a different approach has been chosen: local archives are now contacted in a more direct manner, for example via local workshops. The first micro-archive workshop was held at the Wiener Holocaust Library. Archives from the United Kingdom, especially small archives located in secluded places, discussed here the challenges in their field. Some archivists prefer to keep their data while also wanting to share it in a digitized form.

Another development has been the creation of a prototype Micro Archive Publication Tool (MAPT), that simplifies the process of publishing image-based micro-archives in a sustainable, standards-compliant, and rights-holder friendly manner. Sigal highlighted the benefit of software that can assist micro-archives and that may become available for all in the near future.

Next up was Veerle Vanden Daelen (Kazerne Dossin), who deals with data identification and integration of every archive and collection, big or small -  the biggest work package in EHRI. Recently, while in Canada, Veerle visited various archives who as a result, are now actively working on preparing their data for the EHRI Portal. The success of this outreach shows the importance of personal contact. Not only new archives are encouraged to connect with EHRI, also EHRI partners within EHRI-3 have to keep on integrating and updating their collection descriptions. Special mention is in order for the Center for Urban History in Lviv, Ukraine, who despite the conditions they are working under, still managed to integrate their data and quickly.

The use of the EHRI Portal is also enhanced, Veerle continued, by the Vocabularies Matching Tool (VMT), which connects an institution’s vocabulary to metadata in EHRI’s vocabulary, and by Linked Open Data (LOD), that will enable more connections between the Portal and other databases.

In EHRI’s early years, she remembered, data identification and integration started with a spreadsheet; it has now progressed to digitized data integration.

Angel Chorapchiev (Yad Vashem) is in charge of localisation and capacity building. Two EHRI Experts groups were created a year ago: one for Reference and Information Services Experts and a second one for Holocaust Photographs Experts. After a lot of work was been done via Zoom, the Photographs group held an in-person workshop on 7 December 2022 in Budapest, as well as a conference co-organized with the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest. The workshop was productive, with lectures from experts in the group. A second workshop will take place before September 2024.

For the Reference group an in-person workshop is planned before the end of 2023, taking place at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) in Munich.

Angel’s Work Package will also deliver the Experts Lab’s Portfolio of Services, an accumulation of different services provided by EHRI.

Access, Training and Education Services

The last session of the day revolved around EHRI’s training and education services. Anna Ullrich of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (Munich)  gave an update about the EHRI seminars series. During the pandemic when in-person interaction was impossible, it was unclear what format the seminars could take. The Center for Urban History in Lviv organized a seminar on Zoom in October 2022, which turned out very well. Fortunately, in-person seminars are possible again and several are planned for this and next year, among them EHRI’s first education seminar. This seminar will take place in Prague on 7-11 August 2023 and will focus on teaching the Holocaust as a European event.

Anna concluded by mentioning that DANS and Kazerne Dossin have built an online course: “Aligning Holocaust data with Open Research and FAIR data principles.” The course will be launched on the EHRI site in the coming months.

Another exciting prospect is the development of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which is created by a Yad Vashem team, led by Sandra Rosenfeld. The interactive EHRI Online Course that ran in 2017-2018 had far more students than anticipated. The MOOC, titled: “The Holocaust through the Perspective of Primary Sources”, will have no limitations when it comes to participants. It will be available on Coursera, a massive open online course provider that has over a 100 million registered users. The MOOC will be launched in the last year of the EHRI-3 project.

The EHRI Conny Kristel Fellowship Programme is another successful training component of EHRI, led by Ana Bărbulescu (Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust). The first three calls since the start of EHRI-3 were very successful. The number of applications was beyond expectations. The submission deadline for the fourth call is end of June 2023. Ana mentioned that all applications from Eastern and Southern Europe after the third call were successful in getting accepted, which is in line with ambitions.

Ana related to the audience that it is interesting to see what topics are chosen by the fellows, as this gives a glimpse into the future directions of the Holocaust Studies domain.

After this last update, Karel Berkhoff concluded the General Partner Meeting by thanking everyone involved. After this plenary meeting, several smaller works package meetings were held in the afternoon and the day after.

¹ Gela Seksztajn-Lichtenstein was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. She was married to Israel Lichtenstein and the couple was active in the “Oneg Shabbat” underground Archive in the Warsaw ghetto. She also participated in educational activities.  Gela, Israel and their daughter Margalit were all murdered, probably during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. From the Yad Vashem website