An Online Source Edition on Everyday Life of Occupied Societies during the Second World War

EHRI Webinar | 20 March 2024 | 3:00 PM CET | On Zoom

During the Second World War, approximately 230 million people in 27 countries lived under German occupation. Despite these high numbers, the German public knows very little about the experiences of the occupied societies throughout Europe. The Online Portal “Societies under German Occupation” ties in here and provides sources on everyday life of occupied societies during the Second World War, with a specific focus on dealing with hunger and scarcity.

The portal also underscores the multi-layered persecution experienced by the Jewish population: not only did they face the challenges of living in occupied societies, but they also lived in fear of antisemitic persecution and murder shortly after the occupation began.

The portal is designed for a broad audience – for those generally interested in research, academics, pupils, and teachers. The sources are available with an English translation, in their original language transcription and as a scan of the original document. The digital source edition builds on the print edition, Fighting Hunger. Dealing with Shortage , an international cooperation project published in 2022 and recently awarded by the American Library Association (https://rusaupdate.org/awards/best-historical-materials/). The digital portal was created in cooperation between the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Wuppertal and the Trier Center for Digital Humanities.

 Tatjana Tönsmeyer (Bergische University Wuppertal) is a Professor of Modern European History at the University of Wuppertal. She is the project leader of both the print edition and the online portal of “Societies under German Occupation – Experiences and Everyday Life in World War”. Her main areas of research are the European History of the twentieth and nineteenth centuries, especially the history of World War II, occupation, National Socialism, and the history of statehood. She is a member of several academic advisory boards, and member of the preparatory group of the NS-documentation centre on World War II and crimes of occupation, to be established in Berlin. Her forthcoming book “Everyday Life under Occupation in Europe, 1939-1945” will be released in 2024.

 Laura Eckl (Bergische University Wuppertal) is a research assistant at the Chair of Modern European History at the University of Wuppertal. She has been the project coordinator of the online portal "Societies under German Occupation" since October 2022. In her dissertation project she focuses on the German occupation of the Kharkiv Oblast during the Second World War, in particular on the supply strategies of the occupied society. Her research interests are modern and contemporary European and transnational history of everyday life.

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Topic: EHRI Webinar
Time: Mar 20, 2024 03:00 PM CET

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