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E-Newsletter for August 2022 |
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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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Exhibition curator, Dr Barbara Warnock, and Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library, Dr Toby Simpson, discuss the relevance and importance of our current exhibition.
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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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Online Exhibition
In July we launched our latest online exhibition, which presents a newly digitised collection of anti-Fascist material from Nazi Germany, drawn from the Library’s archives. The collection the largest of its kind outside Germany – is of Tarnschriften, hidden writings, concealed in everyday items such as pamphlets and books. Anti-Nazi propaganda was distributed and shared in this camouflaged form.
Political groups who continued to resist the Nazis under threat of deportation, imprisonment or death found ever more covert ways to distribute their messages. Tarnschriften in our collection include advertisements for cosmetics or shampoo, recipe books and even instruction manuals for housewives.
These objects show the creative approach of anti-Nazi resistors to evading censorship and promoting alternative political discourse in Nazi Germany.
You can also view our Tarnschriften Reading Room exhibition until the 1st September - Come along to the Wolfson Reading Room weekdays 10am-5pm to see these fascinating objects in person.
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Reading Room Exhibition
1 September - 31 October
This upcoming Reading Room exhibition will draw upon historical documents in the archives of The Wiener Holocaust Library to focus on the theme of the renewal of Jewish communities after the Holocaust. The exhibition will feature materials from post-war Displaced Persons camps relating to the lives and experiences of Holocaust survivors, and uncover stories of the births, weddings, family reunions and migrations to new lives that happened in these most difficult of circumstances.
This exhibition is being curated as part of B’Nai B’rith UK’s Jewish Heritage Festival.
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Exhibition Talk
On 20th July we welcomed Dr Joe Mulhall, Director of Research at Hope Not Hate, for a fascinating talk about the far right today. We heard about his infiltration of fascist groups in the US and Scandinavia and the character and organisation of contemporary fascist and far right groups. Dr Mulhall spoke of the role of internet and social media in the creation of 'post organisations': disparate far right groups lacking formal leaders.
Particularly pertinent was his discussion of how the historicisation of the Holocaust and the loss of memory of the events of the Holocaust, fuels far-right ideology today. The talk also considered the significance of issues such as the migrant crisis and climate breakdown for the contemporary far right.
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In a first for the Library, this month we were delighted to receive a copy of this newly remastered Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill album featuring a photograph from our collection. This portrait of Lotte Lenya is from our celebrated Gerty Simon collection which we exhibited in 2019.
We were delighted for this significant photograph to be used on this new celebration of Lenya and Weill's music, and for the album to showcase the work of such a prominent but little-celebrated photographer.
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The Wiener Holocaust Library’s educational outreach programme has grown and developed significantly in recent months. In July, we welcomed A-Level students from Westminster School for a tour of the Library and a workshop that explored Nazi antisemitism using primary source material from our archive.
We spoke at the Holocaust Educational Trust Ambassador Conference and delivered a workshop on antisemitism in the 1930s. The workshop drew on archival collections held at the Library to examine how the German Jewish community were oppressed and persecuted during the early years of the Nazi regime.
We also hosted a workshop for A-Level History students from Forest Hill School, exploring the extent to which the Holocaust was a 'long-term plan'.
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.
September will see the launch of our Education Outreach Newsletter - a dedicated resource for Teachers detailing our ever-expanding education programme, educational resources and upcoming tours and workshops. Further information and details of how to sign up will be released shortly...
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© Photo by Yakir Zur 7111
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The PhD and a Cup of Tea doctoral seminar series is designed for early-career researchers and PhD candidates to present their research for feedback from other researchers, PhD candidates, and faculty in a constructive, inclusive and friendly virtual setting. We are particularly interested in welcoming MA, doctoral students, and faculty to attend the seminars to share their views and perspectives. To get involved and to present your research, please contact Dr Christine Schmidt. Our first seminars for autumn term will be held in September, with registration details opening soon
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Friday 16 September 10:00 - 17:00 The Wiener Holocaust Library
This one-day, in person workshop coordinated by the Holocaust Research Institute and held at The Wiener Holocaust Library will bring together postgraduate and early career researchers focusing on gender and the Holocaust. The workshop seeks to cover a range of themes, topics and demographics to incite discussion, debate and collaboration with gender at the core - with the understanding that gender is a fluid term and does not pertain only to women: masculinity and sexuality are also important frameworks to consider. We hope the workshop engages with this and offers an enriching day for all attending.
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Wednesday 3rd August, 6:30pm
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 Mikołaj 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.
Mikołaj Grynberg is a distinguished writer, reporter and photographer, shortlisted for the Nike Literary Award (one of the most prestigious awards for Polish literature) and laureate of the Warsaw Literary Premiere Award.
Jo Glanville is a journalist, editor and radio producer. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, London Review of Books, New York Times and Jewish Quarterly, among other publications.
Antonia Lloyd-Jones has translated works by several of Poland’s leading contemporary novelists (including Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk) and reportage authors, as well as crime fiction, poetry and children’s books.
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Thursday 11th August, 1:00pm
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 antisemitic ideas; documents and photographs collected by the Library’s predecessor organisation in the 1930s highlighting the antisemitic 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.
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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Thursday 8 September, 6:30pm
Part of the Excavation – Confrontation – Repair? Family Histories of the Holocaust series
In this talk, Elise Bath, International Tracing Service Archive Team Manager at The Wiener Holocaust Library, will explore some of the documents in the Library’s collections that give an insight into the lives of Holocaust survivors in the immediate post-war period, and show how the ITS Digital Archive can be used to research the experiences of survivors of Nazi persecution as they tried to rebuild their shattered lives.
This event is part of B’Nai B’rith UK’s Jewish Heritage Festival taking place 1 September to 31 December.
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12 September, 7:30pm - Online Event
Judith Hayman tells the story of her mother’s life in the small town of Berndorf in Austria before and after the Anschluss on 12 March 1938.
Judith uses anecdotes from her mother, Charlotte, and from her aunt Frieda’s oral testimony. The miracle of Charlotte and Frieda and their immediate family’s escape is revealed but so too are the stories of family who were trapped in Austria and perished in the Łódź ghetto. Judith’s themes are on the role of bystanders and on what can happen when you hate ‘the other’ so much you want them dead.
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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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Part of the Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today event series.
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. 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.
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HGRP Event
The Wiener Holocaust Library and the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London, were delighted to host The Legacy of the St Louis Virtual Panel as part of its of Holocaust and Genocide Partnership activities. The event followed a screening of the documentary film Complicit, and included discussion with the documentary's creator Robert Krakow, Esq., as well as former child refugee passengers on the MS St Louis.
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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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