Beyond Camps and Forced Labour. Current International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution

Eighth international multidisciplinary conference, to be held at Birkbeck, University of London, and The Wiener Holocaust Library, London, 7-9 January 2026

The conference will be held in-person only, with no opportunity to attend virtually.

Call for Papers
This conference is planned as a follow-up to the seven successful conferences, which took place at Imperial War Museum London in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015 and at Birkbeck, University of London, and The Wiener Holocaust Library in 2018 and 2023. It will continue to build on areas previously investigated and open up new fields of academic enquiry.

The aim is to bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines who are engaged in research on all groups of survivors of Nazi persecution. These will include - but are not limited to - Jews, Roma and Sinti, Slavonic peoples, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LGBTQIA+, Soviet prisoners of war, political dissidents, members of underground movements, people with disabilities, the so-called ‘racially impure’, and forced labourers. For the purpose of the conference, a ‘survivor’ is defined as anyone who suffered any form of persecution by the Nazis or their allies as a result of the Nazis’ racial, political, ideological or ethnic policies from 1933 to 1945, and who survived the Second World War.

The organisers welcome proposals which focus on topics and themes of the ‘life after’, ranging from the experience of liberation to the trans-generational impact of persecution, individual and collective memory and consciousness, and questions of theory and methodology.

In response to recent scholarly debate and feedback we have received from the last conference, for this eighth conference we are keen to encourage in particular papers on:
- Testimonies and ego-documents
- Digital humanities methodologies
- Antisemitism and racism after 1945
- Survivors of the Roma and Sinti genocide

As previously, we also warmly welcome new research in the following areas
- DPs in post-war Europe
- Former forced labourers in central, east and south-east Europe
- Early post-war Holocaust research
- Yiddish studies, including Yiddish sources
- Relief and rehabilitation
- Reception and resettlement
- Comparative experiences of Jewish and non-Jewish survivors
- Jewish returnees from the Soviet Union
- Literary representation of survival
- Survivors in ‘grey zones’, including kapos
- Victimhood and survival in changing public discourse
- Soviet and other prisoners of war
- The legacy of euthanasia and medical experiments
- Exiles, émigrés and refugees in the reconstruction process
- Rescuers and liberators
- Child survivors
- Gender and survival
- Physical and psychological consequences
- Trials and justice
- Reparation and restitution
- Visual representations and ethics of new technologies
- Museums, exhibitions and memorials
- Archives and record-building

Panel proposals are welcome.

We particularly encourage early career scholars and PhD candidates to apply; and we are pleased to announce that the Center for Holocaust Studies (Munich), the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies (Yale University), and the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (Vienna) will financially support a number of speakers.

Please submit an abstract of 200-250 words together with a biography of 50-100 words through our online application form by 31 March 2025: https://forms.gle/PY4r8KDHH7WXg3Kg8

If you have any trouble with this form, please contact Christine Schmidt: cschmidt@wienerholocaustlibrary.org

All proposals are subject to a review process. The organisers aim to respond to all applications received by summer 2025.

Fee: GBP 120 for speakers. The fee includes admission to all panels and evening events, lunches and refreshments during the conference. Further information and registration details will be made available in due course.