Name: Międzynarodowa konferencja 'Documenting the Holocaust: Testimonies as Historical Evidence June'
Start: 2026-06-15T17:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-06-17T15:30:00+02:00
Location: Tłomackie 3/5, 00-090 Warsaw, Poland

$Mi\u0119dzynarodowa konferencja 'Documenting the Holocaust: Testimonies as Historical Evidence June'$

Zapraszamy na międzynarodową konferencję „Documenting the Holocaust: Testimonies as Historical Evidence”
15–17 czerwca 2026 r.
Wydarzenie odbędzie się w sali konferencyjnej w Błękitnym Wieżowcu, wejście od ul. Tłomackie 3/5.
Konferencja będzie prowadzona w języku angielskim i nie będzie tłumaczona na język polski.

International Conference
‘Documenting the Holocaust: Testimonies as Historical Evidence’
June 15–17, 2026
Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute

Program
Day 1, June 15, 2026 – Conference room in the Blue Tower
17:00 – 18:30 Keynote lecture:
Judith Lyon-Caen (EHESS, Paris), “The bread of one’s dreams”. Poetry, Testimony, Historical Evidence

Day 2, June 16, 2026 – Conference room in the Blue Tower
09:00 – 10:00 Registration
10:00 – 10:30 Conference Opening
10:30 – 12:00 Panel I. Voices of the Survivors
Chair: Krzysztof Persak (Polish Academy of Sciences, POLIN Museum)
Bak-Zawalski Aleksandra (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), The Legacy of Survivors’ Speeches: Holocaust Testimony in Auschwitz Commemorative Ceremonies in the Context of Socio-Political Transformations
Blumenthal Rachel (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Legal Claims for Restitution and Compensation as Early Holocaust Testimonies
Rozenfeld Anna (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich / Center for Jewish Studies (ZJS), Berlin), Before the Archive: Voices of Holocaust Survivors on Yiddish Radio in Poland, 1945–1948
12:30 – 14:00 Panel II. Early Testimonies from the Balkans
Chair: Stephen Naron (Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies)
Rudorff Andrea (Fritz Bauer Institut, Frankfurt am Main), The Bucharest Collection of Early Survivors’ Testimonies
Stefan Olga (University A. I. Cuza), From Courtroom to Archive: Early Holocaust Survivor Testimonies in Romanian War Crimes Trials
Stojanović Tamara (University of Belgrade), Between Testimony and Evidence: Jewish Survivor Statements in the Documentation of the Yugoslav State Commission
15:00 – 16:00 Panel III. Violence
Chair: Natalia Aleksiun (University of Florida)
Waligórska Magdalena (Humboldt University Berlin), Testimonies of Holocaust Dispossession as Narratives of Violence: Early Testimonies and Complementary Sources in Dialogue
Olshansky-Farkash Talia (Open University of Israel), Testimony as Institutional Evidence: Reconstructing the Administrative Transformation and Liquidation of Jewish Labor Camps in Late 1943
16:30 – 18:00 Panel IV. Diaries
Chair: Kangisser Sharon (Yad Vashem)
Darmon Malka Tehila (Herzog College), Diaries as Early Testimony: Dialogic Witnessing Under Persecution
Niklas Juliane (Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History), Exegesis of Catastrophe: Processual Knowledge about Camps in French-Jewish Diaries
Borbala Kriza (Independent scholar), Who Possesses the Past? Pál Bács’s Diary, Survivor Testimonies, and Local Historiography in the Contested Memory of the Gas Chamber in Kőszeg

Day 3, June 17, 2026 - Conference room in the Blue Tower
10:00 – 11:00 Panel V. Trials
Chair: Agnieszka Haska (Polish Center for Holocaust Research, Polish Academy of Sciences)
Gawron Edyta (Jagiellonian University), The Evidence for Justice. Holocaust Survivors and Their Testimonies during the Immediate Postwar Trials in Krakow
Kuc Oktawian (University of Warsaw), Between Memory and Judgment: Survivor Testimony in Early Holocaust Trials before the Polish Supreme National Tribunal
11:30 – 13:00 Panel VI. JHI Archive
Chair: Zofia Trębacz (Jewish Historical Institute)
Abakunova Hanna (University of Alberta), Hidden in Yiddish: ŻIH Testimonies and Early Soviet Documentation in the Reconstruction of Ghetto Experience in Occupied Ukraine
Koźmińska-Frejlak Ewa (Jewish Historical Institute), Whose Voice Do Testimonies Speak In? Between Testimony and Translation
Nader Luiza (Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw), Material Witness, Relational Portraiture and Visual Existential Testimony. Works by Gela Seksztajn from the Ringelblum Archive
14:00 – 15:30 Panel VII. Local Histories
Chair: Ian Rich (Wiener Holocaust Library)
Barak Greta (Ghetto Fighters' House), The Hersh Segal Collection: Children’s Testimonies from Romania (1946–1947) and the “Documentary Debt”
Panz Karolina (Institute of Slavic Studies Polish Academy of Sciences), From Behind Walls, Fences, and Windows: Witnessing in Podhale, 1942
Kumala Aleksandra (Jagiellonian University), Witnessing Across Time: Samuel Reifer’s Testimonies and Local Holocaust Memory in Chrzanów

Venues:
Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Main Building, 3/5 Tłomackie St., Warsaw
Blue Tower, Bankowy Square, Warsaw
***
The conference is organized within the framework of EHRI-PL and co-funded with resources from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for the task ‘Ongoing Activities of the Polish National Node of EHRI-PL – the EHRI-ERIC consortium, implemented by the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute [JHI] for the years 2025–2027 in cooperation with national partners.’