Papers
The Journal of Transport History, 2024
This article analyses a collection of eyewitness accounts by survivors of Nazi persecution gather... more This article analyses a collection of eyewitness accounts by survivors of Nazi persecution gathered in the mid-1950s by the Wiener Library in London, narratives that were elicited about lived experiences of railway transport and trauma, as well as the implication of railway personnel and structures in resistance activities. The accounts provide an opportunity to interrogate early postwar narratives that reveal emerging constructions of refugee identity, agency, and survival through key memories deemed particularly “valuable” to the Library, an institution created by Jewish refugees who fled Nazi persecution. Through a case study approach framed by Ketelaar's distinction between archivalisation and archivisation, this paper argues that narratives of trauma, displacement and resistance associated with deportation by train were of special interest to Library staff already in the 1950s. This is striking due to a lack of scholarly focus on these themes until decades later. The recent publication of the collection as a digital resource has the potential to further expand and recontextualise “tacit narratives” of transport embedded in the collection.
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Bridging Research Praxes Across Pluralities of Knowledge, 2023
How can researchers working both within and external to academia in all disciplines and areas of ... more How can researchers working both within and external to academia in all disciplines and areas of research recognize knowledge produced in other spheres
and engage more ethically and collaboratively with that knowledge and those who create and circulate it? This was the central question behind the Bridging
Research Praxes Across Pluralities of Knowledge conference held at Linkoping University in Sweden and on Zoom in April 2022. At the heart of the conference
was the recognition that searching for answers to this question cannot be left to arbitrary and haphazard engagements and encounters but must be motivated,
reflected on, and formulated clearly in ongoing discussions. This special issue of Culture Unbound continues the discussions begun at the conference. Both the conference and this special issue have served as a platform for researchers to engage in open dialogue about the challenges and opportunities of bridging research and praxes across pluralities of knowledge. Organized around three principal areas of discussion – research ethics and shared authority, citizen science/research, and metrics, value, and recognition – the conference involved researchers working both within academia and outside of the academy (such as journalists, artists, practitioners, etc.) and from a variety of disciplines, research
fields, and geographical locations, with one or two moderators. Working from videos and transcripts from the conference, some of the conference participants
have reflected and written on the discussions started at the conference in the contributions published in this issue. Through the unique format of this issue, the
contributions reflect the continued discussions and collaboration that have taken place as other contributors have read and commented on others’ contributions.
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European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2023
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The Journal of Holocaust Research
In June 1947, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) launched an exhibition in London titled ‘Search for... more In June 1947, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) launched an exhibition in London titled ‘Search for the Scattered.’ Some of the materials on display were loaned to the WJC by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)’s Central Tracing Bureau (CTB), the predecessor to the International Tracing Service (ITS). The exhibition presented a detailed accounting of the vital work of both the CTB and the WJC. This paper argues, on the basis of the limited documentation that remains, that the ‘Search for the Scattered’ exhibition was a site of postwar knowledge production and transnational exchange that served a practical purpose: facilitating searching by addressing visitors as potential enquirers and reproducing the material culture of the search for visitors to view, read, handle, and understand. Like lists of names that were posted in DP camps, the exhibition can also be read as an early marker of the emotive power of name lists; in Leora Auslander’s words, commemorative markers of ‘a shared fate and common tragedy.’1 Although tracing work has been infrequently a focus in the historiography of the Holocaust, the staging of this exhibition demonstrates early recognition of the significance of the WJC’s and CTB’s tracing work and the need for its wider acknowledgement, and suggests the reconstructive and restorative nature of the search itself.
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Jewish Historical Studies, 2022
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Jewish Historical Studies, 2022
Introduction to "A view from London: selected papers from the symposium in honour of Professor An... more Introduction to "A view from London: selected papers from the symposium in honour of Professor Antony Polonsky"
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https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/558154, 2020
This chapter examines early search efforts in Britain, particularly the creation of the United Ki... more This chapter examines early search efforts in Britain, particularly the creation of the United Kingdom Search Bureau for German, Austrian, and Stateless Persons from Central Europe (UKSB), within the context of Jewish refugee migration to Britain and the history of Anglo-Jewish responses to the Holocaust. It will consider the early involvement of the British Red Cross Society (BRCS) in the search and the foreshadowing of its later exclusion from centralised search machinery established in postwar occupied Germany. It also briefly analyses how tracing might have been instrumentalised for purposes other than strictly humanitarian ones, reflecting wariness on the part of the British government to resolve the position of refugees in Britain. By examining the organisation of search efforts in Britain as early as 1943, precedents for and complexities of search efforts developed at the end of the war in Continental Europe can be more fully elucidated. The history of searching in Britain reveals both the British and transnational elements of tracing as well as the confrontation with loss and move toward recovery after the Holocaust, and more specifically, how Jewish refugees in Britain and the communities that interacted with them made sense of the Holocaust as greater understanding of the extent of destruction materialised.
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Agency and the Holocaust Essays in Honor of Debórah Dwork, 2020
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Freilegungen: Wege, Orte und Räume der NS-Verfolgung, 2016
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The Holocaust: Essays and Documents, 2010
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Jewish Resistance to the Nazis, 2014
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Freilegungen: Spiegelungen der NS-Verfolgung und ihrer Konsequenzen, , 2015
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AJR Journal, 2017
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Teaching Documents
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A project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center f... more A project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, the International Tracing Service, and the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide.
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Online Resources and Blogs
Filming for peace: blogs and articles, Imperial War Museum, 2022
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Wiener Holocaust Library blog, 2021
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Wiener Holocaust Library Blog, 2021
In this article, a version of which was published by The Jewish Chronicle, Dr Christine Schmidt, ... more In this article, a version of which was published by The Jewish Chronicle, Dr Christine Schmidt, Deputy Director and Head of Research at The Wiener Holocaust Library, reflects on the prevailing power of survivor testimony.
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Wiener Holocaust Library blog, 2021
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Wiener Holocaust Library Blog, 2020
Staff of the Library consider the ethics and practice of Holocaust-era artefact reproduction
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and engage more ethically and collaboratively with that knowledge and those who create and circulate it? This was the central question behind the Bridging
Research Praxes Across Pluralities of Knowledge conference held at Linkoping University in Sweden and on Zoom in April 2022. At the heart of the conference
was the recognition that searching for answers to this question cannot be left to arbitrary and haphazard engagements and encounters but must be motivated,
reflected on, and formulated clearly in ongoing discussions. This special issue of Culture Unbound continues the discussions begun at the conference. Both the conference and this special issue have served as a platform for researchers to engage in open dialogue about the challenges and opportunities of bridging research and praxes across pluralities of knowledge. Organized around three principal areas of discussion – research ethics and shared authority, citizen science/research, and metrics, value, and recognition – the conference involved researchers working both within academia and outside of the academy (such as journalists, artists, practitioners, etc.) and from a variety of disciplines, research
fields, and geographical locations, with one or two moderators. Working from videos and transcripts from the conference, some of the conference participants
have reflected and written on the discussions started at the conference in the contributions published in this issue. Through the unique format of this issue, the
contributions reflect the continued discussions and collaboration that have taken place as other contributors have read and commented on others’ contributions.
Teaching Documents
Online Resources and Blogs
and engage more ethically and collaboratively with that knowledge and those who create and circulate it? This was the central question behind the Bridging
Research Praxes Across Pluralities of Knowledge conference held at Linkoping University in Sweden and on Zoom in April 2022. At the heart of the conference
was the recognition that searching for answers to this question cannot be left to arbitrary and haphazard engagements and encounters but must be motivated,
reflected on, and formulated clearly in ongoing discussions. This special issue of Culture Unbound continues the discussions begun at the conference. Both the conference and this special issue have served as a platform for researchers to engage in open dialogue about the challenges and opportunities of bridging research and praxes across pluralities of knowledge. Organized around three principal areas of discussion – research ethics and shared authority, citizen science/research, and metrics, value, and recognition – the conference involved researchers working both within academia and outside of the academy (such as journalists, artists, practitioners, etc.) and from a variety of disciplines, research
fields, and geographical locations, with one or two moderators. Working from videos and transcripts from the conference, some of the conference participants
have reflected and written on the discussions started at the conference in the contributions published in this issue. Through the unique format of this issue, the
contributions reflect the continued discussions and collaboration that have taken place as other contributors have read and commented on others’ contributions.
Through letters held in the Library’s archive and in private collections, the exhibition will uncover how people exchanged information across borders, in defiance of censors and in the midst of chaos, deportations and destruction. How did survivors and relatives preserve or come to safeguard letters from the wartime period, and how did these seemingly ordinary objects transform into precious and extraordinary symbols of what was lost?
As one of the world’s leading archives of the history of the Holocaust, the Wiener Holocaust Library houses many collections of Nazi-era family letters.
This catalogue offers a unique opportunity to experience these and to find out what persecutees knew about the events unfolding around them. It illustrates powerfully how knowledge about the Holocaust was produced and exchanged by correspondents across many countries during the Second World War and in the immediate post-war era.
This catalogue accompanies a temporary exhibition hosted by The Wiener Library in London from October 2016 - February 2017. The exhibition examines responses to Jewish and other refugees in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s. Built on the rich collection of refugee sources held by the Wiener Library, the exhibition explores a number of themes, including governmental policy on asylum and assistance offered by humanitarian aid organisations at the international, national and local level.
'A Bitter Road' also looks closely at the myriad experiences of Jewish refugees in Britain, including of surveillance and detention, poverty, separation and isolation. It highlights their resilience and means for coping with the hardships of integrating into a new society. Through the voices of refugees, 'A Bitter Road' explores how refugees negotiated the road to safety and attempted to rebuild their lives.
This timely exhibition and catalogue raise important questions about historical examples of forced migration and Britain’s response in the past – and how the past can inform our responses to refugees today.
Despite immense logistical challenges, a number of charities, such as the British Red Cross Society and the Jewish Relief Unit, attempted to help find missing people and reunite families. Their efforts came together what became known as the International Tracing Service (ITS).
Co-curated with Professor Dan Stone (Royal Holloway, University of London), this exhibition tells the remarkable, little-known story of the agonising search for the missing after the Holocaust. Drawing upon The Wiener Library’s family document collections and its digital copy of the ITS archive, one of the largest document collections related to the Holocaust in the world, the exhibition considers the legacy of the search for descendants of those affected by World War II, and the impact of fates unknown.
Jewish researchers attempted to counteract this complete “eradication”
even as the murders were being committed. They documented this event by gathering sources to visualize and remember the scale of the crimes and the extermination of Jewish life. In exile, as well as in life threatening conditions in the ghettos and camps, they carried out research, collected facts and preserved evidence of the crimes. They founded archives and committees that continued their work after the end of the war. They wanted to document who was murdered and to identify the killers. They wanted to remember the dead, to fathom the crimes, to bring the perpetrators to justice and, at the same time, they wanted to make future genocides impossible.
Driven by varying motives, these women and men from a variety of professional backgrounds dedicated themselves to the research and the commemoration of the Holocaust. They thereby denied the criminals their final triumph: the murder of millions did not fall into oblivion and did not go without consequence.
Books, memorial sites, research institutes, trials and, last but not least, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 were results of their passionate dedication. Our contemporary knowledge of the Holocaust and the basis of our remembrance of the Holocaust are based on this legacy.