When Michal Frankl, Head of the Shoah History department at the Jewish Museum in Prague, asked me to be a part of EHRI, I was really excited to be involved in such a large and ambitious project, working together with Holocaust institutions throughout Europe and Israel. From the opening meeting in Brussels in 2010, it was clear that close cooperation between people would be a vital element of EHRI’s success. Working closely with other EHRI professionals is one of the most interesting and important parts of what I do; I help coordinate the work of the six different institutes involved in EHRI’s Work Package 2, Trans-institutional Research Guides.

My experiences with the EHRI project have so far been very positive. The conferences have been all the more enjoyable thanks to the many nice and open people I have met. Since it is so important for our work that we communicate well with the other work packages that are part of EHRI, I am really thankful for this.

I work for a very practical work package; our team works directly with archival material to produce an online finding aid and link the collections of different institutions relating to the history of the Terezín Ghetto and the Jewish Communities in Prague, Vienna and Budapest. I’ve enjoyed being a part of the project from the beginning, starting with the more theoretical discussions about how we can develop a common system for connecting metadata from the institutions in WP2, through to implementation.

What brought me to EHRI? I studied history at the University of Vienna, and before beginning work at the Jewish Museum in Prague, I worked at the Terezín Initiative Institute in Prague and the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance in Vienna.

I completed my MA thesis on the health care system in the Terezín Ghetto, so working closely and practically with the archive collections on this topic is also an important and enjoyable part of the work for me. Currently I am writing my PhD on Austrian refugees in Czechoslovakia 1934-39.

In my free time I like to listen to classical music, visit museums with my girlfriend or just sit with friends having a drink and putting the world to rights.

EHRI Newsletter, October 2012