BARENBOIM - SAID
AKADEMIE
PIERRE BOULEZ
SAAL
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Tue, June 9, 2026 at 9:00 AM

ASSESSING THE STATE OF HOLOCAUST STUDIES IN THE MID-2020s

Conference

Pierre Boulez Saal - Mozart Auditorium
A limited number of tickets may become available at a later date.

In less than 50 years, Holocaust Studies has developed from a marginal field into a vibrant international discipline. With the passing of the last eyewitnesses in the coming years, a decisive transformation is now underway: contemporary history is becoming history. At the same time, the field faces new challenges—from politicized debates and attacks on scholarship to the reverberations of wars and conflict, which are prompting scholars worldwide to partially reassess the Holocaust in both its historical and contemporary dimensions. The workshop brings together leading international researchers at various career stages to assess the current state of Holocaust studies critically: What has been achieved? What remains unresolved? What new directions are emerging?

Program

Tuesday, June 9
Mozart Auditorium
 
9am – 9.30 am
Arrival
 
9.30 am – 11 am
Welcome and Opening Lecture
 
Welcome
Jacob Eder (Berlin) and Stefanie Fischer (Berlin)
 
Opening Lecture
Practicing Holocaust Studies in Times of Uncertainty
Thomas Pegelow Kaplan (Boulder/Berlin)
 
 
Break
 
 
11.30 am – 1 pm
Perpetrator Studies: New Approaches
 
Chair: Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin)
 
Bureaucratic Practicalities, Legal Truths, and Racial Imperatives—Determining Paternity at the Civil Registry Office [Standesamt] in Nazi Berlin
Émilie Duranceau-Lapointe (Frankfurt am Main/Berlin)
 
Conceptualizing Everyday Holocaust Perpetrators: The Cultural Ideas and Social Practices of Eduard Geist
Suzanne Brown-Fleming (Washington, D.C.)
 
Holocaust Perpetrator Studies: A Moribund Field?
Emil Kjerte (Rijeka)
 
 
Break
 
 
2.00 pm – 3.30 pm
Mourning the Dead after World War II: Politics, Cultures, Aesthetics
 
Chair: Stefanie Fischer (Berlin)
 
Before the Memory Boom: How Eastern European Jews Mourned the Dead or The Forgotten Origins of Holocaust Memory Culture
Anne-Christin Klotz (Jerusalem)
 
Holocaust Memorials Built by Jews: Invisible Commemoration
Anna Berezin (Jerusalem)
 
Fundraising for the Dead: The Mourning Aesthetics of the German Youth in Postwar West Germany, 1945–1960
Jackie Olson (Stanford/Vienna)
 
 
Break
 
 
4 pm – 5.30 pm
A Return of Theory? The Challenges of Postcolonial, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies
 
Chair: Stefanie Middendorf (Berlin)
 
(Post)colonial Entanglements in Holocaust Literature
Natalie Eppelsheimer (Middlebury)
 
Departures and Decisions During and After the Holocaust: Looking for Palestine
Atina Grossmann (New York)
 
Lost Languages of Human Rights. Early Postwar Legal Thought and the Holocaust
Anne Rethmann (Jerusalem)
 
 
Break
 
 
6.30 pm – 8 pm
Foyer
 
Welcome: Jacob Eder (Berlin)
Moderator: Stefanie Fischer (Berlin)
 
Featuring a musical performance by students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie
 
8 pm – 9 pm
Foyer
Reception

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