DÖW Workshop in Vienna: "Persecution at Home: Eviction and Resettlement of Jews Within the City Space, 1938-1942"
Persecution at Home: Eviction and Resettlement of Jews Within the City Space, 1938-1942
21-22 September 2020 | Location: Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance and Renner Institute, Vienna, Austria
Deadline for papers: 15th May 2020
The Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes – DÖW) is organizing an international workshop: “Persecution at Home: Eviction and Resettlement of Jews Within the City Space, 1938-1942”. The workshop will be held at the DÖW and the Renner Institute in Vienna, Austria on September 21st and 22nd 2020.
In the years prior to the mass deportation of Jews, the Nazi regime subjected the Jewish population to a series of laws and decrees evicting them from their homes. They were relocated to areas with an already high proportion of the Jewish population to make parts of the city “judenfrei”. For the Jewish population, this accelerated impoverishment and isolation and ultimately simplified the later deportation to the ghettos, concentration camps and extermination camps. This way, the Jewish population was instructed not only in ever smaller areas, but also in ever closer living space, literally crammed together.
In view of their later experiences of flight and deportation, survivors rarely give much mention to the resettlements and “ghettoizations” of their family within the city.
Despite the importance of this forced resettlement of the Jewish population for the disenfranchisement, exclusion, displacement and ultimately for the deportation of the Jewish population, the phenomenon has mostly been examined only locally.
The international workshop “Persecution at Home: Eviction and Resettlement of Jews Within the City Space” aims to provide an impetus for comparative research. The workshop, held in English, is aimed at scholars from various research areas (Holocaust research, spatial studies, digital humanities) who conduct research on this phenomenon in the countries of Central and Western Europe. The public conference aims to develop common comparative research of the “ghettoization” of the Jewish population in the cities under Nazi rule before mass deportation.
Proposals are welcome in – but not limited to – the following domains: