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E-Newsletter for July 2022 |
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Dear Friend,
Welcome to The Wiener Holocaust Library's e-newsletter for July.
In this issue find out more about the Library's current exhibition, Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today; read about our international and educational projects; and discover more about our recent Arts Council England-funded project to bring our Family Papers collections out of the archive.
You can also catch up on virtual talks, register for upcoming events, or find out how to join one of our free public archive tours.
Kind regards,
The Wiener Holocaust Library
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On show until 9 September 2022 |
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Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today |
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The exhibition Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today shines a light on the various strategies that those fighting against antisemitism have taken over the last one hundred years and more, from publishing pamphlets refuting antisemitic ideas, to gathering evidence about the activities of antisemites, to street fighting and the infiltration of fascist groups.
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The Library's new exhibition has been curated partly in response to worrying trends in contemporary antisemitism, including the rise in harassment of Jews in recent years, and the spread of conspiracy theories online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This exhibition reveals the history of the fight against antisemitism over the last century in France, Britain and Germany. Through unique and never seen before documents from the Library's collections, and striking photographs from CST's archives, we spotlight the stories of the individuals, organisations and campaigns that have fought against antisemitism since the time of the Dreyfus Affair in 1890s France.
The arrest, trial and imprisonment of Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus on false charges of espionage became a sensation in France and across Europe, galvanising both antisemites and their opponents.
Antisemitism continues to pose a very real threat to Jews in Britain, Europe and around the world.
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Online Shop |
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Exhibition Catalogue
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The exhibition catalogue is available to purchase online. It examines the individuals, organisations and campaigns that have fought back against antisemitism in France, Britain and Germany across more than a century.
The catalogue features reproductions of original items from on the Library’s extensive collections documenting antisemitism and the struggle against it, as well as rare photographs from the archives of the Community Security Trust.
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Exhibition Features |
Here is a glimpse of some of the special documents and objects featured in our current exhibition. We look forward to your visit. The exhibition is open daily in our exhibition room in the Library.
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Jewish Centre of Information reports produced at the time of the events of November Pogroms in 1938.
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Der Anti-Nazi: Redner und Pressematerial iiber die NSDAP (The Anti-Nazi: Speeches and Press Material about the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party- the Nazi Party), 1932.
These handbooks were written to provide practical assistance to those fighting antisemitism and were published by Büro Wilhelmstrasse in the early 1930s. Wiener Holocaust Library Collections.
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Alfred Wiener, Vor Pogromen (Before Pogroms), 1919.
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Bound copies of Psst..., 1898-1899.
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Exhibition curator, Dr Barbara Warnock, and Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library, Dr Toby Simpson, discuss the relevance and importance of our current exhibition, Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today.
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Arolsen Archives |
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International Commission Meeting in Brussels |
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The Library's Director, Dr Toby Simpson, represented the United Kingdom at the International Commission of the International Tracing Service Archive on 21 June. This year the Commission was presided over by the Belgian delegation, chaired by Gilles Heyvaert of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As part of their presidency, the Ministry has sponsored the construction of the travelling exhibition #StolenMemory, curated by Arolsen Archives in German, now translated into French and Dutch. The exhibition is currently touring throughout the country and the most recent leg of the exhibition, in Brussels at the Egmont Palace, was opened at the beginning of the meeting of the International Commission,
The Wiener Holocaust Library is proud to be the UK copyholder of the International Tracing Service Archive, a remarkable archive of over 30 million pages of Holocaust-era documents relating to the experiences of over 17.5 million people. Thanks to financial support from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities; the Heritage Lottery Fund; and private donors, the full digital copy of the ITS archive can be accessed at The Wiener Holocaust Library.
Dr Simpson said: "I was honoured to act as the UK's representative at this year's important annual meeting of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service. I would like to express my thanks to the Belgian Presidency and Arolsen Archives for the outstanding progress made this year, particularly in raising awareness of this astonishing, immense and uniquely powerful archive." Along with other delegates, Dr Simpson accepted with thanks a copy of the book Sources pour l'histoire des populations juives et du judaisme en Belgique for the WHL collections.
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The Library’s Deputy Director and Head of Research Dr Christine Schmidt was delighted to give a keynote lecture on the history of the Library’s eyewitness accounts collection at the international workshop, Refugees and Survivors in National Historiographies and Public History: Archives, Voices and Memories, at Malmö University on 16-17 June.
Dr Zoe Waxman (Oxford University), one of the Library’s Trustees, also gave a keynote address on testimony as a response to mass atrocity The workshop, which brought together international scholars and doctoral students in the fields of history, migration studies, archives and collections management, and memory studies, created a forum to analyse the place of those forcibly displaced in recording, writing and remembering history.
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Arts Council England Grant
This month the Library concludes its Arts Council England-funded project aimed at improving access to our Family Papers collections via a generous grant from the Designated Development Fund awarded in early 2020.
The Wiener Holocaust Library's Assistant Curator Helen Lewandowski led this project. Read her blogpost about the expansion of the Library's physical and digital archive, the creation of the digital Refugee Map and the events, exhibitions and workshops which have served to highlight our refugee family papers.
Image: Photo albums from the Ludwig Neumann family papers collection. Wiener Holocaust Library Collections.
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Workshop Report
Mapping Migration and the Challenges of Digital Curation
In celebration of 2022’s Refugee Week and the launch of the Wiener Holocaust Library's new Refugee Map, the HGRP hosted an interdisciplinary, one-day virtual symposium on 20 June 2022.
Prof. Simone Gigliotti of the Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London, gave a keynote lecture about Evaluating Geospatial Initiatives as Transnational Holocaust Storytelling. Participants examined themes related to the challenges of transnational digital curation and the sustainability of digital humanities resources in a new digital age for archives and heritage collections.
Prof. Gigliotti's website showcasing her work on storymaps can be found here.
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Educational Outreach 2022/2023 |
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Resources and Events for Schools |
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The Wiener Holocaust Library’s educational outreach programme has grown and developed significantly in recent months, following the recruitment of a dedicated Education Officer, Kiera Fitzgerald. We have expanded our programme of online talks and exam revision sessions, and also welcomed many schools into the library for tailored workshops on a variety of topics including Using Photographs in Teaching About the Holocaust; The Nazi Rise to Power; The Day of ‘Liberation’; An Introduction to the Holocaust; Source Analysis for Coursework; Jewish Resistance, Nazi Dictatorship, The Racial State and Nazi Persecution of Roma and Sinti. We have also delivered a number of sessions in schools. Through these online and in-person sessions we have reached over 600 students throughout the UK over the last year. We have also worked with a number of groups of teachers and training teachers. We have also developed a number of new educational resources and features on our The Holocaust Explained website. The latest educational resource to be uploaded is Nazi Antisemitism and this uses contemporary source material to explore antisemitism during the Nazi regime.
As we look forward to the academic year 2022/2023, please contact education@wienerholocaustlibrary.org if you are interested in booking a tailored talk or workshop for your school.
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Conny Kristel European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Fellow
The Library was delighted to host Prof Laura Hobson Faure in June, who spent one week in residence developing her project, 40 Boys from Berlin: Flight, Survival, Memory, a microhistory of forty unaccompanied Jewish children from Berlin, during the Holocaust in France and over a period of 70 years, over three continents. Her project will shed new light on children’s experiences of the Holocaust, in particular in Nazi Germany and Vichy France, and the ways in which they formed networks and emerged as actors in Holocaust commemoration.
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Techne (AHRC) Placement at the WHL
On his return to Prague in 1945, Arnošt Eckstein wrote a series of letters to his sister Marta in London. Having been liberated from Friedland concentration camp on 8 May 1945, he used his letters to articulate his understanding of what had happened to him and his family. He was convinced that 'everyone everywhere knows all this'* because information about 'the catastrophe' (one of the terms used for the Holocaust at the time) was available via newspapers, exhibitions and lectures in the early post-war era. Nevertheless, it took decades for the everyday experiences of persecutees to come to the public's attention.
Personal experience and the personal collections held at the Wiener Holocaust Library form the centre of a new HGRP exhibition about Letters from the Holocaust which opens early next year. As part of my techne (AHRC)-funded work placement, I have had the privilege to read my way into these deeply personal correspondences and trace the emergence of an early form of Holocaust knowledge that has often been overlooked in the past.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the WHL and the chance to get to know the team. As guest editor of the newsletter, I got a glimpse of many areas of the Library's work. Meeting with donors who have entrusted the Wiener Library with their Holocaust-era family collections and listening to them talk about their letters has been a highlight of my placement. To witness the making of an exhibition from the initial concept and the academic research involved through to its design and presentation has been a unique opportunity and a great learning experience.
For now I return to my PhD project about German bourgeois subjectivities in Nazi Germany, which is based on my own family's collection of letters (see my blogpost). I look forward to next spring when Letters from the Holocaust will be on display in the exhibition rooms at 29 Russell Square.
Sandra Lipner is a techne (AHRC)-funded PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London. She recently completed a three-month placement at the Wiener Holocaust Library working on the Library’s family collections towards the upcoming exhibition Letters from the Holocaust.
* 27 July 1945, WHL Vic Eckstein collection, letter 5.
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Thursday 7 July, 6:30-8pm
Exhibition talk: Conspiracy and Antisemitism: combatting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion 100 years ago and why this remains significant today
Antisemitism entered the political mainstream in Britain in 1920 when a national newspaper, the Morning Post, published 18 long articles loosely based on the forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This newspaper series was the most prominent expression of a widespread tendency among conservatives at the time, who repurposed deep-rooted anti-Jewish stereotypes as they reacted to global crisis and the Bolshevik Revolution. The challenge of combatting antisemitism produced significant divisions among Jews who not only disagreed over what the causes of antisemitism were but also argued over whether education or, indeed, anything could help improve matters. In this lecture David Feldman explores the appeal of conspiracy theory in these postwar years and the responses of British Jews to the threat they faced. He asks how this history can illumine the challenges we face combatting antisemitism today.
David Feldman is Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and Professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. He specialises in the history of antisemitism, Jewish history, the history of migration in modern Britain and the history of racialization.
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Monday 11 July, 6:30-8pm
This talk will focus on Maria Chamberlain’s book, 'Never Tell Anyone You’re Jewish', a story of two assimilated Jewish families in Nazi-occupied Poland in the eye of the Holocaust. The material in the book is compiled from recounted memories of the survivors, unfinished memoirs, letters, photographs, and historical archives.
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Wednesday 20 July, 6:30-8pm
Exhibition talk: Joe Mulhall: The Rise of Today’s Far Right
Joe Mulhall's dramatic experiences on the front line of anti-fascist activism, including infiltrating far-right events in both Europe and America, coupled with his academic research, will clearly explain the roots of both elected and non-elected far-right movements across the globe and seek to explain how we got here and where we could be headed.
Joe Mulhall is one of the UK’s leading experts on far-right extremism and Director of Research at the UK’s largest anti-fascism organisation, HOPE not hate.
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Thursday 21 July, 6:30-8pm
Deborah Cadbury will discuss her book on the school, which features moving first-hand testimony, letters, diaries and present-day interviews, The School That Escaped the Nazis is a dramatic human tale that offers a unique child's-eye perspective on Nazi persecution and the Holocaust. It is also the story of one woman's refusal to allow her beliefs in a better, more equitable world to be overtaken by the evil that surrounded her.
In partnership with Insiders/Outsiders and the Association of Jewish Refugees.
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Monday 25 July, 7-8pm
The Wiener Holocaust Library and the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London, are delighted to host The Legacy of the St Louis Virtual Panel as part of its of Holocaust and Genocide Partnership activities.
Viewers will have access to view the award-winning documentary Complicit beginning on 17 July. This free online event will complement the film and will give viewers the opportunity to hear from the creator and producer of the documentary, Robert Krakow, Esq., as well as from former child refugee passengers on the MS St Louis.
Complicit is a fascinating blend of drama, survivor interviews, and actual footage retelling the story of the MS St. Louis, a German luxury ocean liner, that set sail from Hamburg, Germany to Havana, Cuba in the spring of 1939. The 937 mostly Jewish passengers were attempting to escape Nazi persecution. Turned away by the Cuban government and then thwarted by American and Canadian authorities, the captain was forced to return the ship and its passengers to Europe where more than 250 passengers perished in death camps.
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Tuesday 26 July, 6:30-8pm
More than 75 years after the Holocaust, antisemitism is on the rise again on the left as well as the far right. Our speakers have expertise on antisemitism in France, Britain and Germany, and amongst the topics that they will consider are recent manifestations of antisemitism in these countries; the connections that current day antisemitism has with antisemitism in the past, and the reasons why antisemitism persists.
Speakers: Natasha Lehrer, Daniel Trilling, Olga Grjasnowa
Chair: Professor Philip Spencer
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Thursday 28 July, 6:30-7:30pm
In this talk, the editors and contributing authors of the book, 'Antisemitism on Social Media', will discuss how social media has revolutionised the dissemination of antisemitism and how this impacts not only victims of antisemitic hate speech but also society at large.
Antisemitism on Social Media, published in March 2022 by Routledge, is a book for all who want to understand this phenomenon.
Speakers: Monika Hübscher, Sabine von Mering, Ph.D.
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Wednesday 3 August, 6:30-8pm
In Proof of Identity, Mikołaj Grynberg talks to Polish Jews across the generations about the experience of being a Jew in Poland today. It’s an intimate, revelatory insight into a traumatic history, filmed on the stage of POLIN museum in Poland. Following the screening, director Mikolaj Grynberg will talk to Jo Glanville from Warsaw on Zoom about the inspiration for the film and his work as a writer exploring the history of Polish Jews. Antonia Lloyd-Jones will translate the discussion.
Speakers: Mikołaj Grynberg, Jo Glanville, Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
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Thursday 11 August, 1-2pm
Part of the Library’s Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today exhibition events series.
In this talk, the curator of The Wiener Holocaust Library’s latest exhibition will discuss the genesis of the exhibition project and the process of curation. She will explore some of the key documents, photographs and artefacts on display in the exhibition, including rare printed materials relating to the Dreyfus affair from France in the 1890s; pamphlets produced in Weimar Germany refuting Nazi anti-Semitic ideas; documents and photographs collected by the Library’s predecessor organisation in the 1930s highlighting the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi regime; photographs documenting the work of Jewish anti-fascist street speakers in East London in the 1950s, and a tool kit designed to help those seeking to campaign against the BNP in elections in Britain.
Speaker:
Dr Barbara Warnock is the Senior Curator and Head of Education at The Wiener Holocaust Library.
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5 September, 6:30-8pm |
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Hybrid Lecture: 2021 Ernst Fraenkel Prize Winner – Franziska Exeler, Ghosts of War
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In this talk, Franziska Exeler will explore the themes of her book, 'Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus', which analyses the prosecution and punishment of Soviet citizens accused of wartime collaboration with the Nazis.
Speaker:
Franziska Exeler is Assistant Professor of History at Free University Berlin. She is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for History and Economics, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge.
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The Wiener Holocaust Library Blog |
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Why not check out the Library's blog? Read staff articles, past book reviews, guest posts and more.
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The Library's YouTube Channel |
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Did you know that the Library has a YouTube channel? Browse through some of the past events the Library has hosted. Includes virtual events, book talks, curator talks and more.
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To mark the launch of a new travelling exhibition, Mapping Memories: Jewish Refugees to Britain, 1933-1945.
In this online event, Becky Taylor drew from her recent book, Refugees in Twentieth-Century Britain. A History (Cambridge, 2021), and explored the enormous efforts made by voluntary organisations to bring refugees from Nazism to Britain. In the process, she highlighted the role, not only of passion but of self-interest, frustration and bureaucracy in the desperate efforts to bring refugees to safety before the outbreak of the Second World War.
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At a time when international justice is very much in the headlines, this symposium assessed the history and legacy of the ICTR from different perspectives, bringing together panellists who are experts in international criminal justice and those who have first-hand experience of the ICTR. The discussion covered the following themes: the history of the ICTR, its rationale, beginnings and years of operation; its significant achievements; the issues and challenges that the ICTR faced during its years of operation; and the ongoing legacy of the ICTR, including its impact from a Rwandan perspective and the implications for international justice more broadly going forward.
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In her major non-fiction debut, Linda Kinstler investigates both her family story and the archives of ten nations to examine what it takes to prove history in our uncertain century. Probing and profound, Come to this Court and Cry is about the nature of memory and justice when revisionism, ultra-nationalism and denialism make it feel like history is slipping out from under our feet. It asks how the stories we tell about ourselves, our families and our nations are passed down, how we alter them, and what they demand of us.
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The Wiener Holocaust Library hosted a panel discussion featuring the artist Gunter Demnig, who will speak about his work.Several scholars and practitioners will also comment on related themes of Holocaust memory, memorialisation, and education.
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The Wiener Holocaust Library was delighted to host this hybrid in-person and virtual event in celebration of Karina Urbach’s new book Alice’s Book as part of our Excavation-Confrontation-Repair? Family Histories of the Holocaust events series.
Alice Urbach had her own cooking school in Vienna, but in 1938 she was forced to flee to England, like so many others. Her younger son was imprisoned in Dachau, and her older son, having emigrated to the United States, became an intelligence officer in the struggle against the Nazis.
Returning to the ruins of Vienna in the late 1940s, she discovers that her bestselling cookbook has been published under someone else’s name. Now, eighty years later, the historian Karina Urbach – Alice’s granddaughter – sets out to uncover the truth behind the stolen cookbook, and tells the story of a family torn apart by the Nazi regime, of a woman who, with her unwavering passion for cooking, survived the horror and losses of the Holocaust to begin a new life in America.
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Chaired by Dr Christine Schmidt, Deputy Director and Head of Research at the Library, the event featured four Yale University Press authors, Rebecca Clifford (author of Survivors), Amy Williams, Bill Niven (author of Hitler and Film) and Dan Stone (author of The Liberation of the Camps). Each author talked about the writing of their books to reflect on how the historiography of the Holocaust has changed and why the topic is more important now than ever.
This event, a collaboration between The Wiener Holocaust Library, Yale University Press and The Institute of Historical Research (IHR), was held to mark the IHR’s centenary year.
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Roma Support Group |
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Roma Secondary School Learning Material |
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The Roma Support Group has created a short survey to gauge whether teachers in secondary schools would benefit from having resource material on the Roma genocide during the Second World War and Roma migration in the UK.
Completing the survey will inform our practice and policy team.
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Jewish Museum London's new exhibition until 18 September |
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The Eye as Witness: Recording the Holocaust |
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Discover how images shape the way we remember history with The Eye As Witness – a major exhibition using creative technology to contrast Holocaust photos taken by perpetrators with the perspective of victims.
The Eye as Witness is an immersive multimedia experience examining Holocaust photography. It has been designed to make us question the motives behind the recording of historical events and to encourage critical thinking on racism, hatred and ‘fake news’ today.
Taking the instantly recognisable Nazi-propaganda images of sub-human victims in Nazi ghettos and concentration camps, visitors are led to reconsider the images as persecuted and dignified humans living ‘everyday’ lives only days before the Nazis came to power.
Featured in the exhibition is an award-winning immersive virtual reality (VR) experience. This cutting-edge experience enabled visitors to enter a virtual environment and ‘step into’ a Nazi-produced Holocaust photograph taken in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Alongside this are interactive displays, which offer visitors the opportunity to view the rare secret photos taken by Jewish people and members of the anti-Nazi resistance who use the camera to record the story as they saw it.
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Historical context and personal experience
A Generation2Generation event to remember the Vel d,d’hiv, the largest round up of French
Jews during the Holocaust, which took place 80 years ago in Paris
on 16 and 17 July 1942 and also affected foreign-born Jews in
other areas of France.
The film will focus on the experiences
of the families of two of Generation 2 Generation’s speakers, Debra
Barnes and Susanna Rosenberg. They will be available to answer
questions together with Holocaust historian, Dr Jamie Ashworth.
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Become a member of the Library |
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Demands upon the Library continue to increase as we face rising antisemitism, racism, distortion and denial of the Holocaust and genocide. We need to continue our important work to ensure our Collections are put to the best possible use and to the service of the future.
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Becoming a member is a powerful way you can support us in working towards our wider mission. In return, you can enjoy our exclusive member benefits and know that you are playing a significant role in the future success of the Library.
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