Genealogies of Memory: The Holocaust between Global and Local Perspectives
Gábor Danyi, Małgorzata Pakier, Małgorzata Wosińska
What are the latest trends in Holocaust research? Why is it worth going back to the original - and sometimes unrecognised – sources? How does the memory of the Holocaust change in an increasingly globalised world, and what role can local experiences play in the globalisation process? What impact do new digital technologies and social media have on forms of Holocaust commemoration? These are the most critical issues discussed during the conference "Genealogies of Memory - The Holocaust: between global and local perspectives", organised on-line by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS) in November 2020.
The mission of the ENRS and Genealogies of Memory
The European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS) is an international project that aims to research, document and disseminate knowledge about the history of XX century Europe and ways to commemorate it, emphasising the period of dictatorships, wars and social opposition to enslavement. Members of the Network are Germany, Poland and Slovakia, as well as Hungary and Romania. Albania, Austria and the Czech Republic participate as observers.
The ENRS initiated "Genealogies of Memory" as a cyclical project in 2011 in response to the growing interest in social memory in Central and Eastern Europe and worldwide. The project aims to facilitate academic exchange among scholars from Central and Eastern Europe and promote research on memory in the international academic community. For more details: www.genealogies.enrs.eu
One of the major tasks of the "Genealogies" is to create a forum for dialogue between historical studies (including the history of historiography) and memory studies (social, cultural and their transformations). The search for a balance between these two areas of knowledge also seems relevant for research on the Holocaust. In addition to the exchange of knowledge within the academic circles, the two-way approach (history and memory studies) also invites memory practitioners (including educators, museum workers, representatives of memorial institutions) who carry out their activities in/towards the challenges of today to a partnership discussion.
The Genealogy project initiators, Małgorzata Pakier, PhD, and Joanna Wawrzyniak, PhD, emphasise that the historical and memorial approach has an inherent potential for complementarity. In their words: "Our proposal is to look at the issue of memory with historical sensitivity. We want to draw attention to what is seemingly obvious, i.e., the fact that historical experiences shape certain memory processes". Historical sensitivity to the pluralism of the past was undoubtedly the fundamental premise of our conference entitled Holocaust: between global and local perspectives.
In November 2020 (04.11-26.11) an international on-line conference was held on the reception of current studies on the Holocaust. The conference entitled "The Holocaust: between global and local perspectives" was the 10th-anniversary edition of the academic project "Genealogies of Memory" organised since 2011 by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS).