Central European History Society 6
Session Abstract
Drawing on research conducted in Germany, Cyprus, and South Africa, the panel will cover a broad chronological range, from the 1930s to the present day. Our discussion will be geared to a broad audience, consisting of researchers, educators, and museum staff interested in Holocaust studies, the history of Nazism, socio-cultural memory, and the long-term impact of mass violence. Additionally, the session will appeal to those focused on refugee and asylum policies, and the legacy of widespread human rights violations.
The first two papers in the panel will focus on the micro-historical level introduce the audience to recently untapped historical sources, while the final two papers will explore broader questions of continuities and legacies of the Holocaust to reflect upon questions of race, migration, and trans-generational trauma.
Nicholas Courtman (King’s College London) will explore what the findings from naturalization files can reveal about a group central to the functioning of the Holocaust—camp guards—about whom we still know too little. Lorena De Vita (Utrecht University) will introduce a newly uncovered collection of diaries kept by a little-known German jurist who, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, dedicated much of his professional life to working on reparations, restitution, and compensation for Jewish survivors at local, national, and international levels. Engaging with the legacies of the Eliana Hadjisavvas (Birkbeck University of London) will examine the continuities between the history of the Holocaust and the history of the British Empire, focusing on detention camps in the colonial territory of Cyprus. The presentation of Anna Danilina (Technical University of Berlin) will bring the conversation to the present day, exploring questions related to transgenerational trauma. Andrew Port (Wayne State University, author of Never Again, Harvard University Press 2023) will serve as chair and commentator.
By bringing together diverse themes—transgenerational trauma, displacement, naturalization, and reparations—this session offers a multidimensional view of the Holocaust’s aftermath through an interdisciplinary dialogue across various geographies of harm. While focusing on the Holocaust and its aftermath, this panel will provoke thought on questions that are timeless.