On December 7-8 in Budapest, nineteen scholars, educators, and archivists from ten countries discussed a well-known category of historical records, which, as a closer look invariably reveals, is also a difficult one: Holocaust photographs – or more precisely, photographs taken during and revealing aspects of the Holocaust.

This was the first in-person meeting, co-organized and co-sponsored by the Holocaust Memorial Center (HMC) in Budapest, Hungary, of the international Holocaust Photographs Expert Group, convened in early 2022 by EHRI-3 (within the Work Package Localisation and Capacity Building).

On day 1, the conference “Reflections on Images of the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe” featured a profound keynote speech by veteran researcher Janina Struk (on first photo above), who highlighted the decades in which often, the images were merely seen as illustrations. This was followed by insightful presentations by Maaty Frenkelzon, Tom Haward, András Lénárt, Adrian Cioflâncă, Christoph Kreutzmüller, Tal Bruttmann, and Ramona Bechauf. Discussion was lively.  On day 2, the expert group convened for a closed workshop that outlined concrete steps in which the group can facilitate access to photographs taken during the Holocaust.

EHRI-3 expresses its thanks to the experts, giving a special thanks to historian and educator Christoph Kreutzmüller (Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz in Berlin and the #LastSeen project) and to András Zima, András Lénárt, and Levente Lengyel of the HMC.

You can watch the recordings of the conference here on the HMC YouTube channel.

Images courtesy of Holocaust Memorial Center, Budapest