Holocaust Relics: Personal Treasures or Public Evidence?
The Nazi campaign to rid Europe of its Jews started with seizing their property and possessions. 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 cherished goods to neighbors, or shipped belongings abroad. Some prisoners made clothing, jewelry, spoons, and combs in the concentration camps that survivors or others carefully preserved. After the war, while most of what Jews owned was gone, some possessions were salvaged or reclaimed.
Now, as survivors age — and Holocaust denial is a rising threat — ownership of these objects can be contentious, raising questions such as: Should public institutions hold Holocaust artifacts as crucial evidence of the crimes and as educational resources? When do families have a right to keep mementos as connections to their past?
Using three case studies, the 2020 Monna and Otto Weinmann Annual Lecture explores the material traces of the Holocaust and the ongoing struggles over who owns them.
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.
