14.10.2024

Regional workshop of EU-funded project in Holocaust Studies 

On 26 September 2024, the Institute for the History of the German Jews in Hamburg (IGdJ) held an event to mark the successful completion of work package conducting of the “Digital Memorial and Research Infrastructure – The Holocaust in Hungary 80 Years Later” (HUNGMEM). The project, which is funded by the EU Commission and directed by Dr. Kim Wünschmann and Dr. Anna Menny, aims to compile as many names and biographies as possible of the approximately 500,000 to 600,000 Jews and Roma who were deported and murdered by the National Socialists and their Hungarian allies in what was then Hungary and make them accessible in a digital research infrastructure.
A workshop at the IGdJ and a subsequent panel discussion at the KörberForum at the Körber Foundation in Hamburg provided an opportunity to discuss the research findings, reflect on perspectives and potential and place the project in the broader context of remembrance and knowledge about the past.

The workshop, organized by Anna Menny and Kim Wünschmann, brought together project participants, cooperating institutions, an interested public and descendants of the women, men and children deported from Hungary to northern Germany. The aim of the workshop was to link the macro and micro levels as well as questions of research and remembrance. The program included an introduction to the historical context of the deportations from what was then Hungary by László Csősz from the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archive in Budapest. Victoria Toth from Budapest spoke about the fate of her grandfather Gyula Fürst, who was imprisoned in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and the impact of Nazi violence on the following generations of her own family.

In the second panel, Louis Wörner and Lara Meinert presented the results and challenges of their research. In their concluding comments, Christian Römmer (Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial) and Bernd Horstmann (Bergen-Belsen Memorial) referred to the potential and the opportunities offered by merging the biographical data of the concentration camp prisoners.

Questions of knowledge about the Holocaust, that were very virulent for the project, as well as how to deal adequately with uncertainties and gaps in our historical understanding, were placed in a broader context by the panel discussion “Everything known? Knowledge about the Holocaust”, which was organized jointly with the Körber Foundation. After a welcome and introduction, in which Lena Langesiepen (Körber Foundation) and Anna Menny (IGdJ) emphasized the relevance of this aspect of Holocaust Studies for Hamburg’s history and present, Mirjam Zadoff, Director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, and Rabbi Gábor Lengyel spoke with moderator Johanne Bischoff in front of almost 200 guests (and an additional 200 viewers in the livestream). The panel discussed the importance of history and remembrance for one's own family but also for society at large. They discussed developments and dynamics in science and research in the face of changing socio-political conditions.

A new website was launched which uses various case studies and maps to examine both the transnational dimension of the deportations and the regional interdependence of forced labor and the course of the war. This digital outlet presents the project results to the public.