Call for Applications: Holocaust Memoirs – Who Will Write Their History?

Location of event: Památnik Terezín (Terezín Memorial), Principova alej 304, CZ – 411 55 Terezín, Czech Republic

Date: 30 November – 4 December 2026

Deadline for Applications: 16 August 2026

“We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last – the power to refuse our consent. So we must certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes, not because the regulation states it, but for dignity and propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet, not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive, not to begin to die.”

(Primo Levi, If this is a man, 1946)

“I saw the death of a million people – literally, not metaphorically”

(Tadeusz Borowski, 1946)

“Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one ‘last night’ to another?”

(Elie Wiesel, Night, 1960)

All Holocaust and post-Holocaust writing implicitly or explicitly resists Nazi mnemocide (the deliberate destruction, erasure, or “killing” of memory, either of an individual or of a collective group); each document essentially spells out “still alive.” While early memoirs fundamentally shaped literary and philosophical discourses—defining the very vocabulary of survival—their integration into empirical historical analysis remains less explored. This raises a crucial question: How can we treat memoirs as primary historical sources, and how can literary readings of these texts enrich historical knowledge production?

The trajectory of Ruth Klüger’s memoirs illustrates this complexity. Published in German in 1992 as weiter leben. Eine Jugend and adapted for an English-speaking audience in 2001 as Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, the two versions invite us to reflect on differing testimonial traditions. They highlight how crucial cultural context, specific audiences, translation, and rewriting are to the meaning of a text.

As ego-documents, memoirs do more than preserve personal experiences; they often preserve lost families and shattered communities. They act as narrative bridges between experiences of survival and the reality of “living on.” Often written and rewritten across multiple languages, they inherently explore the labor of memorialization itself.

Building on EHRI-ERIC research, workshops, and dialogues regarding ego-documents, diaries, and Holocaust literature, this seminar wants to address questions that relate to methodology, representation and accessibility as well as textual analysis and close reading:

1) Methodological questions:

    How are Holocaust memoirs integrated into historical research and narratives of Holocaust researchers, and what methodological challenges do they pose?
    How can we write interdisciplinary micro-historical case studies of Holocaust memoirs?
    What insights are gained by bridging history, literary studies, sociology, and memory studies?

2) Questions of representation and accessibility:

    Are there underrepresented voices and experiences in memoirs? What are the barriers to more inclusive representation?
    Additionally, do memoirs provide a voice for actors who are underrepresented in other types of sources?
    What are the key repositories and databases for Holocaust memoirs?

3) Textual analysis and close reading:

    What social frameworks are revealed through the analysis of memoirs?
    And what about their own histories and trajectories – transmission, translation, reception?
    What are the relations between memoirs and other literary texts of one author?

Seminar format

During the seminar, we will answer these questions together by examining specific memoirs. We are particularly interested in analysing lesser-known memoirs that have already been translated into English. Therefore, we ask applicants to submit their own examples or research questions. The seminar will consist of expert input in form of lectures and the presentation and discussion of participants projects and sources.

What to expect from the seminar:

• Discussion of participants’ projects on memoirs
• Short keynote lectures by experts
• Close readings of excerpts of memoirs
• Discussions on interdisciplinary approaches and challenges
• Drafting of a policy paper with recommendations on how to register these sources in the EHRI Portal

The seminar will be held in English.

EHRI will cover accommodation costs for participants as well as travel costs up to € 300.

Please include the following in your application:

You can submit an application by filling in the application form via this link. The application includes:

• A letter of motivation/project description (maximum 300 words)
• A short bio (100-150 words)

Both documents can be uploaded. Please submit the completed application form by 16 August 2026. Any questions can be directed to the email address cfp@ehri.at. Applicants will be notified about the results of their application by 31 August 2026.

 

EHRI National Nodes involved: EHRI-AT, EHRI-CZ, EHRI-DE, EHRI-HR, EHRI-RO, EHRI-PL, EHRI-UK in the framework of the Working group Ego documents in Holocaust Studies and Collections