| VWI invites/goes to... | |||
| Workshop: What’s News in Holocaust Studies? | |||
Thursday, 14. November 2024, 13:00 - 17:00 Vienna Wiesenthal Institute, Research Lounge, 1010 Vienna, Rabensteig 3, 3rd Floor
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VWI invites/goes to Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes Chair: Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider (DÖW), Éva Kovács (VWI) Programme 13:00 13:40 14:20 15:00-15:30 Coffee break 15:30 16:10
Please register at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by latest 13 November 2024, 12.00 am and bring your ID.
Abstracts and Short Bios
Markéta Bajgerová Verly: One Past, Two Histories: Exhibiting the Shanghai Jewish Refugees in China and Austria in Comparative Perspective Many museums around the World launched exhibitions on the topic of Shanghai Jewish refugees in the past few years, putting the history of 20,000 Jews who fled to Shanghai 1933–1941 on display. Though connected in topic, the exhibitions do not present a unified historical account. This research project will analyse and compare two Shanghai Jewish Refugees history exhibitions that opened in 2020: the temporary exhibit titled “Little Vienna in Shanghai” by the Jewish Museum in Vienna and the reworked permanent exhibition of the Shanghai Jewish Refugees. The two exhibits present diametrically different versions of the experience of the European Jewry in wartime Shanghai, the former addressing the challenges that awaited the refugees in Shanghai, the latter romanticising the situation and claiming utopian harmony between the Chinese and the Jews. This project will deconstruct both exhibitions, exploring the question: What does the memorialisation of the Shanghai Jewish refugees reveal about the politics of the globalisation of the Holocaust? Markéta Bajgerová Verly is a PhD student in the ERC project “Globalized Memorial Museums” at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and at the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on “War of Resistance against Japan” museums in contemporary China. In 2020, she obtained an MA degree in China Studies at the Yenching Academy of Peking University. In China, she led a Dean’s Grant project mapping 30 museums across China devoted to the memory of the War of Resistance and studied its memory politics. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Glasgow in Politics and History. Commented by Daniela Pscheiden Daniela Pscheiden, studies in women's and gender history, contemporary history and art history. Previously project assistant in international companies. Research project on juvenile justice during the Nazi era at the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DÖW). Curator at the Jewish Museum Vienna since 2017. Jens Kolata: Forensic Institutional Patients in National Socialist Austria The research project deals with forensic institutional patients as a group of victims in National Socialist Austria and investigates whether specific paths of persecution can be identified for them due to the intersectional intertwining of the persecution criteria criminal delinquency and psychiatric diagnosis. Defendants in criminal proceedings who were deemed to be not “sane” were committed to mental institutions. Many of these forensic patients were murdered during the National Socialist “Euthanasia” from 1940 onwards or deported to concentration camps in 1944, in particular to Mauthausen. The project reconstructs the paths of psychiatric patients through criminal justice, psychiatric assessment, everyday life in the hospital, the National Socialist “Euthanasia,” and imprisonment in concentration camps. The project will supplement a research project about forensic institutional patients in Nazi Germany with an in-depth study of the specific situation in National Socialist Austria between 1938 and 1945. The aim is to examine the particularities regarding the history of forensic institutional patients in a territory annexed to Germany. Patient files and databases from several Austrian archives and memorial sites will be consulted for this purpose. Jens Kolata, M.A., studied history and sociology at the Universities of Tübingen and Groningen. From 2009 to 2015, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine at the University of Tübingen. In his doctoral project at Cologne University, he examined eugenic debates in the German medical press between 1911 and 1976. He has been a research associate at the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main since 2019. Recently, he is working on the research project “Forensic Institutional Patients under National Socialism”. His research interests are the history of eugenics, medicine under National Socialism, and the Nazi persecution of the socially marginalized. Commented by Florian Schwanninger Florian Schwanninger, studies in History and Political Science at the University of Salzburg, 2004 Master Thesis ("Widerstand und Verfolgung im Bezirk Braunau/Inn 1938-1945") since 2005 scientific officer at "Schloss Hartheim Learning and Memorial Centre", since 2014 director of the memorial. Numerous publications on Nazi euthanasia, the Nazi era, the history of Upper Austria and the culture of remembrance after 1945; co-curator of the exhibition "Wert des Lebens" ("Value of Life") at Hartheim Castle - Place for Learning and Remembrance. Olga Kartashova: The International Networks and Jewish Efforts to Prosecute Holocaust Perpetrators in Poland This project delves into the advocacy efforts of Polish Jews for human and minority rights throughout World War II and its aftermath. It highlights the continuity of activism initiated by Jewish lawyers, community leaders, and individuals from the interwar period, which persisted despite the challenges of war and occupation. Contextualising postwar trials and Jewish investigations within this ongoing activism underscores their organic evolution rather than viewing them as isolated events. Jewish lobbyists played a pivotal role in advocating for minority rights, gathering evidence, and providing testimony in courts, representing the Jewish community as a semi-autonomous entity within the evolving landscape of international criminal law. This study contributes a fresh perspective on survivors' conception of justice, their engagement with Polish and other governments in pursuit of it, and their support for investigations and trials. Utilising extensive international networks for information exchange among survivors, domestic and foreign Jewish communities, and legal entities at national and international levels ensured a wealth of sources and witness testimonies for Holocaust-related trials, thereby enhancing the prospects of holding perpetrators accountable. Olga Kartashova is a Ph.D. candidate in Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, specialising in Eastern European Holocaust history, aftermath, memory, historiography, and trials. With a BA in Polish and Jewish studies from the University of Wrocław, an MA in comparative history from Central European University, and an MA in Holocaust studies from Haifa University, Olga Kartashova brings a diverse academic background. As a contractor researcher at the USHMM Mandel Center, she focused on the legal aspects of Holocaust history. Olga Kartashova has led seminars on East European and Jewish roots of international law and was awarded prestigious fellowships, including from the Saul Kagan Claims Conference Fellowship for Advanced Shoah Studies, and the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. Commented by Winfried R. Garscha Winfried R. Garscha, studied history, German and Slavic studies at the University of Vienna, 1988-2018 research associate at the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance. Publications on persecution and resistance, in particular the deportation of Jews, as well as the history of justice and the history of the labor movement. He is, together with Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider, co-director of the Austrian Research Agency for post-war Justice. Kateřina Čapková: From Forced Assimilation to Extermination. Two Divergent Policies Toward Roma and Sinti in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The aim of this research project is a detailed analysis of the wartime experiences of Roma and Sinti in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, based on extensive archival research in central and local archives in the Czech Republic and in Germany, embedded in the European context of the Holocaust of Roma and Sinti. Different models of discriminatory policies can be distinguished in the countries of Nazi-occupied Europe or in the countries of the Nazi allies. While in most of them segregation and deportation to concentration camps or mass murder prevailed, France is an example of the path of social engineering with the goal of forced assimilation. However, in no other country outside of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia can we find a situation in which both policies can be found in chronological order. Until the spring of 1942, the Protectorate government sought the forced assimilation of Roma into society; from the summer of 1942, local Roma and Sinti were deported to special camps, and from March 1943 directly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This history of a completely opposite policies towards Roma and Sinti within a few years can help us to answer several crucial questions, the most important of which is the relationship, similarities and differences between the policies of segregation/extermination and forced assimilation that have accompanied the history of the Roma through the centuries to the present. Kateřina Čapková is a senior researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and she teaches at both Charles University and NYU in Prague. Her research focuses on modern Jewish history in Europe, the history of refugees and migration, and, recently, the history of the Roma and Sinti. Her Czechs, Germans, Jews? National Identity and the Jews of Bohemia (Berghahn, 2012; in Czech 2005 and 2014) was called the Outstanding Academic Title of 2012 by Choice magazine. Together with Hillel Kieval she is co-editor of the multi-author volume Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands, which looks at the history of the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia from the early modern period to recent times (Penn Press, 2021; in German 2020; in Czech 2022; in Hebrew 2024). With Eliyana Adler she co-edited the volume Jewish and Romani Families in the Holocaust and its Aftermath (Rutgers UP, 2020) and with Kamil Kijek the volume Jewish Lives under Communism. New Perspectives (Rutgers UP, 2022). In 2016 she initiated the establishment of the Prague Forum for Romani Histories, an academic platform for sharing and encouraging research on history of Roma and Sinti (www.romanihistories.org). Commented by György Majtényi György Majtényi is a social historian and professor at Károly Eszterházy University. Between 2000 and 2011, he was department head of the National Archives of Hungary. In 2010, he acquired his post-doctoral professorial qualification (Habilitation). He received his D.Phil. in 2004 from the Eötvös Lóránd University with a thesis on social mobility in post-1945 Hungary. He completed several research projects in Austria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, and the United States thanks to various research grants. As visiting professor he taught at multiple universities of Central Europe. His recent research interests include history of the dominant elite in Hungary during state socialism, intellectual history and Roma social history. Lóránt Bódi: Remains without Body: The Cultural Imagination of the Holocaust Soaps Already during the Second World War, there were rumors and harrowing beliefs among the public about the German extermination machine, which decades later hardened into legends or myths. One of the most enduring Holocaust legends was the story of the so-called RIF soaps. Survivors have played an important role in preserving the memory of the soaps for decades, but the story has also moved beyond the confines of those memories and moved into public discourse. Up to the present, historical research has mostly focused on the historical origin of the “soap myth” and sought to falsify this legend. However, this project is following the approach of Geertzian historical anthropology to explore the social function it continues to have in a given cultural context as a response to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Particularly, the knowledge of the origins of the soaps among the survivors has never been considered, and this research project aims to fill these important gaps. In that sense, it will analyse the “myth” and its different historical-semantic layers by using survivors' testimonies, Jewish commemorative practices, and public discourses. Lóránt Bódi is a social researcher and editor. He worked as Assistant Research Fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in international research projects such as COURAGE (Horizon2020) and UMSCEN (Creative Europe). He has been also a guest lecturer at various universities in Hungary. He received his PhD from ELTE (Eötvös Loránd University) in the Atelier – European Historiography and Social Sciences programme. Since 2022, he has been the editor-in-chief of the journal Café Bábel. His main research interest is 20th century Eastern European history, with a special focus on the history of authoritarian regimes and the Holocaust. He is now working on a book entitled With Wounded Hands. Chapters from the Aftermath of the Holocaust (in Hungarian), which is due to be published in 2025. Commented by Herwig Czech Herwig Czech is professor of history of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna. He co-directs the research project “Brain research at institutes of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in the context of National Socialist crimes,” funded by the Max Planck Society. He is also co-chair of the Lancet Commission on Nazism, medicine and the Holocaust. His main fields of research are medicine and biopolitics before, during and after National Socialism, with a special focus on the history of eugenics and ‘racial hygiene,’ public health, psychiatry, pediatrics and neuropathology, and the history of Viennese medicine since the late 18th century. By attending, you consent to the publication of photographs, video and audio recordings made during the event. In cooperation with:
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