Connecting Holocaust researchers to their answers: What archivists can do to strengthen the field - a guest blog for International Archives Day
On International Archives Day, this guest blog by Dr Kathrin Meyer, Secretary General of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and Dr Karel Berkhoff, Co-Director at the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure seeks to raise awareness of the need for a broad approach to identifying Holocaust-related material – and offers practical tools that empower archivists and researchers to apply such an approach.
Time and place rarely hold much sway over the relevance of archival material bearing on the destruction of the European Jews. Raul Hilberg, the father of Holocaust studies, knew this well. Writing in the late 1990s, he reflected on this central feature of Holocaust research in his memoirs:
I would sit in an archive in Lvov [Lviv], reading the correspondence of local German officials dealing with gardens and ornamental horticulture to discover that the greens were used as camouflage in the camps. I would learn that church records of births and marriages dating to the middle of the nineteenth century were essential in proving who was of Aryan descent and hence not a Jew.
Archivists are key to connecting Holocaust researchers to their answers. How archivists define which material is related to the Holocaust can have a major impact on our understanding of this history.
This International Archives Day, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) are raising awareness of the need for a broad approach to identifying Holocaust-related material – and are offering practical tools that empower archivists and researchers to apply such an approach.
Together, the IHRA's new Guidelines for Identifying Relevant Documentation for Holocaust Research, Education and Remembrance and the EHRI Portal provide archivists from all disciplines with an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen the field worldwide, and in doing so, also improve our societies.
New IHRA Guidelines help archivists shine light on shadows of the Holocaust
Archivists are experts at facilitating research, helping ensure societies stand a chance at dealing openly and accurately with the past. This is especially true of the history of the Holocaust. Every archive offers a unique perspective into this history, and determining whether material is relevant for Holocaust research must take place on a case-by-case basis.
The IHRA's experts, together with heads of individual archives – those who know their collections better than anyone else – and leaders of national and international archival system networks, set out to develop a practical tool that would help archivists in that process.
The resulting Guidelines offer flexible, open-ended guidance on how to account for the geographical, temporal, and thematic diversity of relevant material. Archivists can apply the Guidelines to various areas of their work, including when assessing their collections, updating collection descriptions, responding to research requests, and ensuring adherence to Recital 158 of the GDPR.
Taking some of the guesswork out of Holocaust research
Many questions related to the Holocaust cannot be answered. Despite its notoriety as the most well-documented genocide in history, what remains is only a fraction of what existed, due to the efforts of the Nazis and their collaborators to destroy the evidence of their crimes, as well as the culture of those they murdered. This field is one full of lacunas, and every piece we can glean from the full picture is precious. Applying a broad approach to identifying Holocaust-related material is one of the most important ways archivists can ensure that researchers have what they need to fill these gaps.
For Dr Anna Ullrich of the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, this would have helped take much of the guesswork out of her dissertation research. Her project dealt with antisemitic incidents in Germany that took place between World War I and the first years of Nazi rule, and with the advice German-Jewish Associations gave their members who experienced antisemitism. This project sat outside the usual 1933–1945 timeframe generally assigned to Holocaust research. This meant that, often, finding the required sources was the result of trial and error.
Sometimes, Ullrich would get lucky and find, for instance, that a collection described simply as “member correspondence” included extensive exchanges on antisemitic harassment during a vacation in 1920s Germany. But she also had moments when she had travelled to an archive only to discover that the archival descriptions available online had over-promised.
“I sometimes wonder how much highly relevant material has remained uncovered,” she told us, “simply because no specific emphasis was placed on questions of antisemitism and how Jewish men and women were excluded from German society well before 1933.”
EHRI Portal takes a proactive approach to facilitating Holocaust research
Ullrich's experience is far from unique. While a certain amount of trial and error is part of any research project, her story reminds us that helping researchers uncover the multifaceted nature of the Holocaust requires a proactive, concerted effort.
The EHRI Portal fills exactly that gap. Since 2010, EHRI has helped researchers navigate the scattered and fragmented landscape of Holocaust-related material. The EHRI Portal provides them with information on which institutions have relevant holdings, no matter where they are located, with detailed archival descriptions and overviews of archival situations in specific countries. In this way, the EHRI Portal facilitates transnational Holocaust research, connecting material and sharing it across borders.
While EHRI has always taken a broad, open-ended approach to identifying material for the Portal, it has thus far relied primarily on an internal working definition to do so. With the launch of the IHRA's Guidelines, this has all changed. EHRI now makes use of the internationally agreed-upon IHRA Guidelines to guide it in its work, making the decision-making process behind its Portal much more transparent.
IHRA Guidelines allow archivists to contribute to EHRI Portal
EHRI's use of the IHRA Guidelines has another effect: making it possible for archivists to play a very active role. Individual archivists can make use of the Guidelines’ instructions and examples to (re-)assess their collections and alert EHRI to relevant holdings.
Until now, EHRI has been the one to reach out to individual institutions, working with them to fine-tune archival and collection descriptions to be provided on the Portal. The IHRA Guidelines allow for the relationship to become even more collaborative, by making it a two-way process.
Archivists critical to addressing today's challenges
Much has changed since Raul Hilberg first embarked on his lifelong quest to study and analyse the destruction of the European Jews. While Holocaust-related material remains scattered and fragmented, the infrastructure to connect it has never been more robust.
Today, archivists and their institutions are in an unprecedented position to effect real change in Holocaust research by:
Taking a broad approach to identifying Holocaust-related material
(Re-)assessing collections based on the IHRA Guidelines for Identifying Relevant Documentation for Holocaust Research, Education and Remembrance
Informing EHRI of any holdings that are not yet included in the EHRI Portal (feedback@ehri-project.eu)
Doing so is important, especially now.
Antisemitism and Holocaust distortion – warping the facts Hilberg and many others have taken pains to establish – are inching towards the mainstream, making appearances in protests against coronavirus measures, in Parliaments the world over, and in the stated pretexts for war.
Holocaust research is never a purely academic concern, but a prerequisite for open and non-discriminatory societies across Europe and beyond. And archivists are key to strengthening it – on International Archives Day, and every day thereafter.
Have you used the IHRA Guidelines for Identifying Relevant Documentation for Holocaust Research, Education and Remembrance? Tell us about your experience! Send an email to info@holocaustremembrance.com
Thumbnail photo and photo above both courtesy of Yad Vashem