Call for papers - International conference: Helping the Jews in occupied Europe

International conference

Helping the Jews in occupied Europe

Call for papers  

70 years ago the Germans were completing their campaign of near-total destruction of the Jew-ish population. On the occupied Polish territory the last Jews resided in the few remaining ghet-tos (in Lodz, for instance), concentration camps and work camps, and many thousands remained in hiding. They all hoped for the imminent end of the war, but none of them knew who would live to see the day of liberation. One of them was Emanuel Ringelblum, an eminent historian and the founder of the underground archive of the Warsaw ghetto. He was hiding with a group of thirty Jews in an underground bunker located in Warsaw, Grojecka street 81. On March 7, 1944, de-nounced to the Germans, they all (Jews and their Polish rescuers) have been arrested and exe-cuted in the ruins of the ghetto.

All across occupied Europe there were people willing to help the Jews, oftentimes paying the highest price for their courage. Still others put their life on the line trying to warn the world about the ongoing extermination of the Jews. Year 2014 has been declared the Jan Karski year, in order to honor the courier of Polish resistance, who carried the news of the Holocaust to the West.

The planned conference, which will present the state of research into this area, wants to com-memorate Emmanuel Ringelblum and the thousands of other Jews who went into hiding all across the occupied Europe, and to render homage to those righteous gentiles who helped them. The Polish Center for Holocaust Research, the Institute of National Remembrance - Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw invite proposals for the upcoming conference.

Dates:          November, 13–15, 2014, Warsaw

Location:       Centrum Edukacyjne IPN im. Janusza Kurtyki „Przystanek Historia"
                      [Janusz Kurtyka Educational Centre of the IPN],
                      Marszałkowska street 21/25, Warsaw
                      and Żydowski Instytut Historyczny [Jewish Historical Institute],
                      Tłomackie street 3/5, Warsaw

MAIN THEMES

1. Emanuel Ringelblum – life and achievements

2. Individual Help:
• „Aryans“ helping and saving the Jews
• Dilemmas of help: who should be helped (friends, strangers, how many people can be helped), what were the conditions of help, financing help efforts, problems (psychological, emotional, financial, threats).
• The traps and challenges of statistics and uses and abuses of the problem of help.

3. Organized Help:
• Helping Organizations, Allied and Neutral states.
• The International Red Cross, its national branches; Christian Churches.
• Decisions regarding help (individual, collective), finances of help, who is being helped. What are the threats linked to the offered help.
• Resistance movements and the Holocaust.

i. Possibilities and limitations of underground organizations in helping the Jews in various countries of occupied Europe.

ii. Which Jews are more likely\less likely to receive help from the Resistance organizations.

iii. Political and ideological context of help.

• Jan Karski and his mission

4. Jews Helping Other Jews

• Individual and Organized Help
• Jews with Agency: Helping Others (Helping whom? Children? Their families? Helping strangers?)
• Motivations and Complications: altruistic help and help seen as a source of income.
• Methods and possibilities of giving help.

5. The Righteous
• Giving awards: the history of the award, motivation to award. Are all rescuers righteous?
• The memory of the Righteous in various countries.
• Using and Abusing the Righteous – international perspective.
• The fates of the Righteous
• The „Not Quite“ Righteous.
• Righteous: the limitations and the Reasons for Refusal of Recognition.
• Public Discourse Concerning the Righteous : „Historical Policy“ in various Countries. 

APPLICATIONS

 Application deadline: March 31, 2014
Announcement of Applications selected for the conference: May 20, 2014
Deadline to send-in the papers: October 1, 2014

Applications should include:

• Curriculum with the current institutional affiliation and the list of publications
• Proposal which will include:
     i. Title of the paper
     ii. Abstract
     iii. List of the most important sources.
     iv. Up to 5 themes of interest or discussion theses

Please, send your applications to the following address:
konferencja2014@holocaustresearch.pl  

ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFERENCE

Time allocated
Each participant will have 15 minutes for his/her presentation. In order to allow the time for discussion, participants – instead of delivering standard papers - are requested to summarize the main theses of their work, to present their sources and to prepare ground for a debate.

Languages
The presentations will be delivered in Polish and in English with a simultaneous translation.

Transportation
Organizers cannot cover participants‘ travel costs. However, funds permitting, the participants might be offered an opportunity to ask for partial/total reimbursement of their travel costs.

Accommodation and food
The organizers will cover the hotel and food costs of the invited participants

All questions should be sent to following e-mail address: konferencja2014@holocaustresearch.pl

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