18th workshop on history and memory of NS concentration camps: Forced Labor, Exploitation, War Production

Conference, 31-8 - 4-9, Bremen, Germany

Kai Michael Becker, Noah Benninga, Dennis Bock, Henrike Illig; in collaboration with "Denkort Bunker Valentin"; and Institute for Ethnology and Cultural Research at the University of Bremen (Prof. Dr. Inge Marszolek)
31.08.2012-04.09.2012, Bremen, "Denkort Bunker Valentin" ("Submarine Bunker Valentin Memorial") Bremen-Farge, Lidicehaus Bremen

The 18th workshop on history and memory of NS concentration camps focuses on the interrelated topics of Forced Labor, Exploitation and War Production. Discussions will evolve around the development and function(s) of the national socialist system of forced labor, as well as the (contested) ways of transmission and memory of this central aspect of the concentration camp universe. Beyond the scope of the core themes, the workshop traditionally offers a platform to young scholars to present a wide range of ongoing research projects concerned with the history and memory of the national socialist concentration camp system.

First launched in 1994, the annual "workshop on history and memory of NS concentration camps" is a self-organized research framework run by Ph.D.
candidates and former participants and thrives off its interdisciplinary and trans-European character. This year, scholars from Germany, Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic and the USA will participate, representing not only historiography, but the social and cultural sciences as well as literature, medicine and archeology.

Traditionally collaborating closely with a university and a memorial, this year's workshop is being supported by the Institute for Ethnology and Cultural Research at the University of Bremen (Prof. Dr. Inge Marszolek) and the "Bunker Valentin" memorial, founded in 2011.

The program includes various excursions, enabling the participants to explore the historical sites of the "Bunker Valentin" and its surroundings and meet members of the memorial staff, thus facilitating exchange and discussions about new approaches to memorial work at the interface of theory and practice.

We are also glad to announce that the historical building of Villa Ichon Bremen will host this year's public keynote lecture, delivered by Jens-Christian Wagner, one of the most renowned historians of the NS forced labor system and director of the Mittelbau-Dora memorial

The workshop is made possible by the generous financial support and cooperation of the following institutions: University of Bremen, "Bunker Valentin" memorial, Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future / Stiftung "Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft", Erinnern für die Zukunft e. V., Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Herrdum Foundation

contact: 18.workshop.orgateam [at] googlemail.com

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September 1st (Saturday), 7:30pm - public keynote lecture, Villa Ichon
Bremen:
Jens-Christian WAGNER (Direktor, Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora):
Vernichtung und Arbeit. Das Beispiel Mittelbau-Dora

Christiane HESS (Bielefeld):
Rückblicke - Einblicke - Ausblicke: Workshop zur Geschichte der Konzentrationslager / Retrospects - Insights - Outlooks: The workshop on history and memory of NS concentration camps

Tanja KINZEL (Berlin):
Fotografien von der Zwangsarbeit aus dem Ghetto Litzmannstadt. Die Perspektiven der Fotografierenden

Thomas VOJTA (Prague):
Rethinking Insights on the Effacement of the Traces of Mass Murder at Treblinka

Jens KOLATA (Wuppertal):
"Unbedingt als Arbeitsscheuer anzusehen". Die Verhaftungen durch die Gestapo im Rahmen der 'Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich' in Württemberg und Hohenzollern

Dmitri STRATIEVSKI (Berlin):
"Vernichtung durch Arbeit?" Soviet POWs in NS Concentration Camps

Elisabeth BÜTTNER (Krakow):
German prisoners of the Auschwitz sub-camps at industrial sites (coalmines and factories) in Upper Silesia

Kimberly ALLAR (Worcester):
Changing of the Guard: An Examination of the Nazi Concentration Camp SS from 1939-1945

Zuzanna DZUBIAN (Krakow/Konstanz):
Spatialities of Holocaust Memory: Memory Work in Former NS Extermination Camps in Poland (Case Study of Belzec and Sobibor)

Tanja VAITULEVICH (Göttingen):
Coming to Terms with the Past. The Return of Former Forced Laborers to the Netherlands and to Belarus

Marco BRENNEISEN (Mannheim):
Die Rezeption der rechtsrheinischen Außenlager des KZ Natzweiler-Struthof - Errichtung von Gedenkanlagen und Herausbildung lokaler Erinnerungskulturen

Moritz LAUTENBACH (Hamburg):
Gedenken ohne Zeitzeugen. Vermittlungsformen bei Schülerführungen in Gedenkstätten

[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-Kult]