Early Attempts at the Historical Documentation of the Holocaust
International Workshop within the framework of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), supported by the European Union
Holocaust Memorial Center - Budapest November 27-28, 2012
Early documentations of the Holocaust still influence the way we look upon the mass destruction of European Jews during World War 2. But who created these collections and what were their motives? In order to understand the historical value of the sources preserved in European archives and other documentation centers, we must explore why and how, and under which political circumstances early documentary projects were set up.
Towards the end of 2012 in Budapest as well as in Vienna we will see researchers coping with questions around early attempts to describe and document the Holocaust. EHRI will organize an international workshop on this topic at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, Hungary on November 27-28.
EHRI - the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure - is dedicated to opening up and connecting of collections related to Holocaust history within a web-based environment. This aim raises the principal issue of the origins of these collections.
EHRI
The overall EHRI-project will connect Holocaust-related collections and archives. Twenty organizations in 13 countries have worked together already for two years to execute this programme. In 2011 the rough structure of the EHRI-thesaurus was developed. This thesaurus will contain keywords of the Holocaust, thus enabling researchers to find relevant information. Also, national reports were written on 42 countries which will soon be published online and the first 12 EHRI fellows have been doing research at unique infrastructures that are participating in EHRI: the Institute for Contemporary History (Germany), the Shoah Memorial (France), the Jewish Museum in Prague (Czech Republik), NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (The Netherlands) and Yad Vashem (Israel).
European Union
EHRI is financed under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union and coordinated by NIOD, the Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. EHRI is a project of great scientific importance since it brings together a pan-European network of Holocaust archives and research institutes specializing in digital humanities, with the aim to stimulate research, facilitate access and preserve unique material on the Holocaust.
The EHRI-workshop is organized in coordination with the more broadly conceived conference of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute entitled Before the Holocaust had its name. Early confrontations of the Nazi mass murder of the Jews. This conference takes place in Vienna on November 29 – December 1, 2012.
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For further information:
Herman Nieuwenhuis +31 6 53 58 60 57