The conference starts with a public round table discussion
on Sunday, December 3, 2017, 18.00 oʼclock:
In the Aftermath of Auschwitz and the Second World War: New Perspectives on the Situation of Jews in Europe in the Years 1945–1950
with Prof. Dr. G. Daniel Cohen (Rice University, Houston), Prof. Dr. Jan T. Gross (Princeton University), Prof. Dr. Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York) and Dr. Tobias Freimüller (Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt am Main); Chair: Dr. Elisabeth Gallas (Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig)

In the postwar years, Europe was a »savage continent«, trying to come to terms with perhaps the most lethal moment in modern human history. Amidst the ruins, poverty and destruction, the surviving Jews of the continent were trying to rebuild their lives and communities, find their postwar identities, and face the recent Jewish catastrophe. We will address these immediate postwar Jewish experiences by focusing on six key topics:
1. The collapse of Nazism, end of the war: Displacement, dilemmas of emigration and return. What were the most immediate dilemmas of survivors after the end of the war? What kind of answers did they give to the question: What to do next? Why did they decide to go back to their countries or why did they opt for emigration?
2. Cultural revival and community building. In what form were Jewish communities rebuilt in postwar Europe? What roles did international and American Jewish aid organizations play in this revival process?
3. Economic and social structures. How did survivors (re-)establish the most basic social unit: the family? What strategies did they come up with to get by economically on an everyday basis?
4. Historiography and memory of the Jewish catastrophe. What kind of institutions and methodologies did postwar Jewish communities establish to document the recent catastrophe? How did they commemorate the Jewish victims of the war?
5. Postwar justice. How did European countries in general and Jewish communities in particular deal with the question of wartime responsibility? What legal and illegal methods were employed and what results did they yield in bringing war-time criminals to justice? What measures were taken to provide restitutions for Jews?
6. Analyzing the past, building the future. In what ways – both concrete and theoretical – did Jews fight the political ideas of Nazism during and after the war? What kind of political and ideological movements did they join and why?

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2017
9.00–9.30 oʼclock: Welcome
9.30–11.15 oʼclock:   
Panal 1. The collapse of Nazism, end of the war: Displacement, dilemmas of emigration and return
› Kateřina Čapková (Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic): Competing Jewish Narratives: Jewish migrants in Postwar Czechoslovakia
› Naama Seri-Levi (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel): Wanderers, Refugees, Displaced Persons: The Experience of Jewish-Polish Repatriates during and after the War.
› G. Daniel Cohen (Department of History, Rice University): »Philosemitic« Western Europe? The Jewish Question in the Aftermath of the War, 1945–1967.
Chair: Sybille Steinbacher (Goethe-Universität/Fritz Bauer Institut Frankfurt am Main)
11.45–13.30 oʼclock:   
Panel 2: Economic and social structures: re-integration into old structures, and the construction of new ones
› Laura Hobson-Faure (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3.): Protecting the European Branch of the Jewish Diaspora: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Europe after the Shoah
› Katharina Friedla (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel): Socio-Economic Patterns and Reconfiguration of Jewish Life in Post-War Poland (1945–1949) – Lower Silesia as a Case Study.
› Kamil Kijek (University of Wroclaw): Polish-Jewish-German triangle, communism, »regained territories« and Jewish transnationalism. Jewish experience of Rychbach/Dzierżoniów in the years 1945–1950.
Chair: Fritz Backhaus (Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main)
14.30–16.45 oʼclock:   
Panel 3: Cultural revival: community (re-)building, the role of aid from world Jewry
› Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak (Jewish Historical Institute Warsaw, Poland): The assimilation of Polish Jews to Polishness and the attitude of the Jewish community in Poland towards assimilation (1945–1950)
› Tamar Lewinsky (Jewish Museum Berlin): Cultural rebuilding in the DP camps of postwar Germany.
› Irit Chen (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel): »Dear Child of Israel« or a »Cheap Partner«: The Relation of the Israeli Consulate in Munich to the Rebuilding of the Jewish Community in Germany 1948–1953.
› Izabela Dahl (School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, Sweden): The complexity of displacement . Polish Jews in Sweden after World War II
Chair: Rebekka Voß (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main)
18.30 oʼclock: Dinner for the participants, Reception at the Römer

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2017
9.30–11.45 oʼclock:   
Panel 4: Memory and silence: Jewish Holocaust documentation and Holocaust memory.
› Manuela Consonni (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel): Auschwitz and the lesson of Srebrenica in the post-memory age
› Natalia Aleksiun (Touro College, New York, USA): Documentation (Self)Censorship and the Early Holocaust Testimonies in Poland
› Ferenc Laczó (University of Maastricht, the Netherlands): Interpreting Responsibility. On the Incipient Historiography of the Holocaust in Hungary.
› Yechiel Weizmann (Haifa University, Israel): Breaching the Silence: Jewish Sites as Reminders of the Holocaust in Communist Poland.
Chair: Christian Wiese (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main)
12.15–13.45 oʼclock:   
Panel 5: Justice and revenge: war-crimes trials, People’s Tribunals, Jewish Honour Courts, restitution.
› Katarzyna Person (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, Poland): Defense strategies in the postwar Jewish Honour Courts
› Philipp Graf (Simon Dubnow Institut, Leipzig, Germany): »The Central Secretariat […] approves the draft bill« – Restitution in the Soviet Zone of Germany Reconsidered
› Annette Weinke (Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany): At the Intersection of Law, History, and Legal Lobbying: Transatlantic Jewish Legal Think Tanks and Postwar Justice.
Chair: Mirjam Wenzel (Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main)
14.45–16.30 oʼclock:
Panel 6: Imagining and building the future: Jewish participation in the postwar administration and the formation of different states.
› Jan Gerber (Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig): Socialist Homogenization. Jews in the Czechoslovak Communist Party, 1945–1952
› Anna Koch (University of Southampton, UK): »The foundation for a new and better Germany« – Communists of Jewish origin in the early German Democratic Republic
› Avinoam Patt (University of Hartford, Connecticut, USA): From Destruction to Rebirth: Jewish Displaced Persons and the Creation of the State of Israel
Chair: Kata Bohus (Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main)
17.00–17.30 oʼclock:
Closing remarks

The conference and the panel discussion will be held in English and are open to the public.

The complete program:
› Conference flyer (pdf-file)

A collaboration of the Fritz Bauer Institute with the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University and the Seminar for Judaism at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Supported by: Daimler AG, European Association for Jewish Studies, Hannelore Krempa Stiftung, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Nassauische Sparkasse, Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Hessen-Thüringen

Kontakt
Fritz Bauer Institut
An-Institut der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1
60323 Frankfurt am Main
Tel.: 069.798 322-40
info(at)fritz-bauer-institut.de