European studies blog

Exploring Europe at the British Library

06 January 2025

Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration. Holocaust Memorial Day 2025

Join us on Monday 27 January 2025 for the event ‘Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration’ and explore how the Holocaust has shaped memory, identity, and culture. Bringing together scholars, historians, and artists, this conference examines the Holocaust’s profound and enduring impact, as well as the varied methods used to preserve its legacy.

From antisemitism in post-First World War Hungary, the Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust, and the commemoration of hidden killing sites in postwar Poland, to Soviet depictions of the Shoah in film and contemporary counter-monument approaches, the programme offers insights into Holocaust memory and its ongoing significance.

‘Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration’ event poster with a blue sky in the background and a list of speakers
‘Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration’ event poster

The conference is organised by the European Collections section of the British Library in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute. The event is open to all, and attendance is free, but registration is required. Booking details can be found here.

Programme:

Date: 27 January 2025
Location: Eliot Room, Knowledge Centre
Time: 2 pm – 5 pm

  • Antisemitic versus Jewish Humour in Budapest Post-WWI
    Prof. Dr Béla Bodó, Department of East-European History, University of Bonn

  • The Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust
    Dr Halik Kochanski, Writer and Historian, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

  • ‘The grave […] has been planted over with potatoes’: Transnational Jewish Fight to Commemorate Holocaust Killing Sites in Poland in the First Postwar Decades
    Dr Janek Gryta, Lecturer in Holocaust History, University of Southampton

  • Representations of the Holocaust in Soviet Cinema
    Prof. Jeremy Hicks, Professor of Russian Culture and Film, Queen Mary University of London

  • There and Not There: (Im)Possibility of a Monument
    Paulina Pukyte, Interdisciplinary Artist, Writer, Curator, and Critic, Vilnius Academy of Arts

  • Poetics of the Archive in Marianne Rubinstein’s ‘C’est maintenant du passé’ and Ivan Jablonka’s ‘Histoire des grands-parents que je n'ai pas eus’
    Dr Diane Otosaka, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Holocaust Literature, University of Leeds
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