AHA Session 158
Friday, January 5, 2024: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
Continental Ballroom 8 (Hilton Union Square, Ballroom)
Chair:
Robert M. Ehrenreich, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Panel:
Leora Auslander, University of Chicago
Alexandra Drakakis, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Gabriel Pizzorno, Harvard University
Caroline Sturdy Colls, Staffordshire University
Alexandra Drakakis, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Gabriel Pizzorno, Harvard University
Caroline Sturdy Colls, Staffordshire University
Session Abstract
The study of the Holocaust—and other atrocities by extension—has predominantly relied upon archival documentation and survivor testimony to elucidate our understanding of how such crimes against humanity were devised, developed, and implemented. Such research, however, tends to privilege the perspectives of the higher-level perpetrators who planned and directed the murders and the small fraction of victims who were able to leave behind documentation or survived to tell their story. The examination of the material culture of the Holocaust allows insights into the lives and deaths of Holocaust victims—their struggles to maintain their links to their past and humanity as well as their agency and survival strategies—through the study of the objects that they kept, made, hid, altered, repaired, and carried with them through their ordeals. This roundtable will approach the topic from three different perspectives: (1) how the analysis of material culture can illuminate everyday life of the victims on a personal level and how the victims attempted to maintain their sense of self and family before, during, and even after the Holocaust for those who survived; (2) how new techniques and methodologies in the digital humanities can provide more generalized insights into the broader actions and responses of the victims to persecution during the Holocaust; and (3) the ethical and procedural dilemmas that tragedy-focused museums and other institutions face in collecting and storing such material culture, including the accurate determination of provenance and the appropriate methods of conservation and storage of these important remnants of this history. The roundtable will not only increase our appreciation of the material turn in Holocaust studies and the information it can provide, but also help identify new theoretical concepts and analytical approaches to advance the study of the Holocaust and other atrocities.
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