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Exploring the Renovated International Research Portal

13/06/2017

By Gregory Jansen

The new International Research Portal for Records Related to Nazi-Era Cultural Property (IRP), hosted by EHRI, contains all of the same information resources that are familiar to people using the portal when it was hosted at NARA. The new portal also includes several new features and an updated design that was created over the past year by students and faculty at the University of Maryland’s School of Information Studies.

Wiener Library Job Advertisement - Freelance Cataloguer

12/06/2017

Fixed-fee project role, circa July-September 2017

The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide is looking for a freelance cataloguer to complete a short project relating to the Library’s Pogrom – November 1938: Testimonies from ‘Kristallnacht’ digital resource. The deadline for completion of this project is 1 October 2017.

Nyura Letter from Online Course

Call for Applications: Interactive EHRI Online Course in Holocaust Studies

06/06/2017

THIS CALL IS NOW CLOSED. A NEW CALL WILL FOLLOW.

The EHRI (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure) Project offers places in an interactive Online Course on “The Holocaust through the Perspective of Primary Sources” designed by EHRI-Partner Yad Vashem. The next course will begin on September 2017. With original documents and interviews with leading historians, it offers a comprehensive insight into various primary sources essential for Holocaust research. Discussions among the participants will be supervised and supported, with written assignments guaranteeing a high scientific standard.

Call for Papers - Special Issue of Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust

29/05/2017

Re-thinking the Muselmann: Narratives, Concepts, and Social Realities

The so-called Muselmann was a figure known to nearly all Nazi concentration camp prisoners. The literature on the topic portrays the Muselmänner as those prisoners who had fallen to a near-death condition and lost their human features, thus making them the extreme emblem of Nazi atrocities. Previous studies have addressed the Muselmann primarily from a medical, etymological, or philosophical perspective. This special issue takes a different approach. It does not view the Muselmann as an irrevocable condition inevitably ending in death, but as a transitory condition of the human body brought about by the psychological and social consequences of its extreme context. As an integral part of prisoner society, the Muselmann participated actively in the social and economic life of concentration camps and had a major impact on its symbolic, material and social order.
As almost any prisoner could become a Muselmann, our approach offers insights into social structures and processes within concentration camps across categories of gender, age, nationality, class and Nazi persecution label. Examining the Muselmann as a narrative in survivors’ texts and other literary genres furthermore provides insight into post-war conceptualizations of camps, suffering, death, and survival. We invite scholars from all disciplines to contribute to this issue.

Wiener Library Job Advertisement - Head of Collections

25/05/2017

Permanent, full-time post based in Central London, WC1

Responsible to: The Director

The Wiener Library is Britain’s largest archive on the Holocaust and Nazi era and modern genocide. Founded in 1933 in Amsterdam the Library’s holdings span all types of resources, focusing on the Holocaust, its causes and consequences. The collections are continuing to grow through donations and acquisitions. In the past five years the Library has undergone major transformation and expansion.

Call for papers: Home as a place for anti-Jewish persecution in European cities, 1933-1945. Crossing urban social history and history of the Holocaust

22/05/2017

Together with the Centre de Recherches Historiques (EHESS) and the Institut de Sciences Sociales du Politique (Université Paris Nanterre-ENS Paris Saclay-CNRS), the George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention is organizing an international conference: "Home as a place for anti-Jewish persecution in European cities, 1933-1945. Crossing urban social history and history of the Holocaust". The conference will be held at the American University of Paris on January 11th-12th 2018.

Deadline July 3rd, 2017

2018 JDC Archives Documentary Film Grant

22/05/2017

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is pleased to announce the 2018 JDC Archives Documentary Film Grant. The JDC Archives will select one film, which will be awarded a grant of $10,000. Eligible films will focus on twentieth century Jewish history, humanitarian assistance, and related topics. Topics can include issues, events and personalities related to overseas Jewish communities during the last century. Films that utilize the JDC archival collections will be given higher consideration.

Call for Proposals EHRI Workshop: Engaging New Generations - The Holocaust and Knowledge Dissemination in the Digital Age

19/05/2017

International Workshop within the Framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure

Thursday, 9 November 2017

Location: NIOD, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam

Young people often combine a great interest in the Holocaust with a low level of knowledge. That, at least, was the outcome of a recent digital survey that was conducted by EHRI with respondents from a variety of ages, education levels and nationalities. For these same young people, the Internet is the first place they turn to when searching for information. As a result, digital media are crucial when developing tools to address new generations and the way they relate to the Holocaust.

Daniel Cesarani

People in EHRI: Daniel Cesarani, Wiener Library and EHRI Communications

03/05/2017

Daniel Cesarani works in the Visitor Services Team and Collections Department of The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London’s Russell Square.

I have been working with EHRI since soon after I joined the Wiener Library around a year and a half ago. With a strong family connection to Holocaust studies I wanted to work in a field that could support academics working in the field and increase my experience in the subject at the same time. The Wiener Library gave me both opportunities and EHRI has proven to be a very welcome addition to my responsibilities here. At The Wiener Library I am in charge of the Periodicals Collection as well as responding to question from our readers via the Wiener Library Contact page.

EHRI Fellow Kylie Thomas: Amsterdam’s "Hunger Winter" and the Photographs of Emmy Andriesse

02/05/2017

Article by Kylie Thomas

The image of a young boy standing in the street in Amsterdam during the Second World War, is perhaps the most famous of Emmy Andriesse’s images that portray the terrible effects of war and starvation on the Dutch population. The child’s small somber face can be seen from the side, the light illuminating his fragile ear and his hair which seems to be standing up around his head from the cold. His thin hands are holding a large dark metal pot, a visual metonym for his empty stomach. He is dressed in an over-sized coat which covers his emaciated body up to his waist. Beneath his coat are short pants that end at his knees and his bare legs protrude below and hardly seem strong enough to bear his weight. His shoes also appear to be too large and, in spite of the cold, he is not wearing socks. The child is shown at the centre of the image and the gaze of the viewer is drawn to his face and to the quiet suffering his expression transmits. He is standing still in the frame and all the senseless suffering of war seems to be concentrated in his small body and seems to be bearing down upon him, making him seem even smaller.

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