We would like to invite you to an international workshop to be held at The Wiener Library in April/May 2012 on Holocaust Testimonies. The meeting is being organized within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), supported by the European Union. EHRI was launched in November 2010, and is dedicated to opening up collections related to Holocaust history within a web-based environment. The overall objective of the EHRI experts’ workshops is to generate a creative exchange of knowledge and views between experts in various methodological subfields of Holocaust research and documentation.
Written and oral testimonies of Holocaust survivors, along with personal documentation such as letters and diaries, can provide information and details otherwise unavailable in the numerous official sources concerning the persecution and murder of the Jews. Consequently, the use of these sources has both practical and ethical imperatives – testimony can add telling details, and it can also allow the individual characters of the victims to emerge. However, the many survivor testimonies that are now available have all been collected at different times, and often in very different contexts. This can make them problematic and challenging when used as a source of historical evidence.
This workshop will focus on some core issues currently facing researchers, archivists and scholars across all disciplines and collection-holding institutions. In reviewing some of the many testimony collections and works undertaken in the past 65 years, we hope to reflect on the content, structure and form of the survivor testimonies, and to explore the future priorities facing this field, such as:
Topics for discussion at the workshop:
1. The Timing of Testimony:
- Notable collections of early and/or late testimonies available in archives, libraries or online resources.
- The comparison of contemporary and retrospective accounts.
2. Testimony as Evidence; Evidence as Testimony:
- The creation of bodies of evidence through war crimes trials.
- The undermining of testimony in the court room.
3. Translation of Holocaust Testimonies:
- The issues involved in translating testimonies.
4. False Testimony
- Can reliability be corroborated by contemporary documentation?
- How should False Testimony be treated by collection-holding institutions?
The workshop will be conducted in English.
Proposals are now invited for individual presentations or participation in round tables relating to the topics above. NB Case studies and collection-specific presentations are also welcomed across all topics.
- Individual Papers
Each accepted paper for individual presentation will be allotted 30 minutes for presentation and discussion.
- Round Tables
An opportunity for several shorter presentations (approx. 10 mins each) and a chaired discussion. This may be a more suitable slot for ‘work in progress’ submissions.