Holocaust Relics: Personal Treasures or Public Evidence?

The 2020 Monna and Otto Weinmann Annual Lecture, digital this year, was held November 9. Using three case studies, the conversation explored Holocaust artifacts and the struggles that sometimes arise over them.

The Third Reich deprived Jewish families of the things that made their dwellings a home—clothes, books, tools, photographs, and keepsakes. Before their exile or deportation, many people buried valued items, entrusted them to neighbors, or shipped them abroad. Some concentration camp prisoners made clothing, jewelry, spoons, and combs that were preserved.

As survivors age—and Holocaust denial is a rising threat—ownership of these salvaged objects can be contentious, raising questions such as: When should public institutions hold Holocaust evidence? When do survivor families have a right to keep mementos of the past?

Opening remarks
Janice Weinman Shorenstein, Executive Director and CEO, Hadassah

Speaker
Leora Auslander, Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor in Western Civilization and Professor of Modern European Social History, University of Chicago

Moderator
Lisa Leff, Director, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies

The mission of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center, part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is to ensure the long-term growth and vitality of Holocaust Studies. To do that, it is essential to provide opportunities for new scholarship. The vitality and the integrity of Holocaust Studies requires openness, independence, and free inquiry so that new ideas are generated and tested through peer review and public debate. The opinions of scholars expressed before, during the course of, or after their activities with the Mandel Center do not represent and are not endorsed by the Mandel Center or the Museum.

Видео Holocaust Relics: Personal Treasures or Public Evidence? канала United States Holocaust Memorial Museum