Representations of the Holocaust in the Cold War Eastern Bloc: the Early Decades.

The conference examines the memory of the Holocaust in fine arts within the Eastern Bloc from 1945 until the end of the 1960s.

Organised by: Freie Universität Berlin, Kunsthistorisches Institut in cooperation with the Museum of Fine Arts – Central European Research Institute for Art History (KEMKI), Budapest
Supported by: Alfred Landecker Foundation.
Location: https://www.harnackhaus-berlin.mpg.de/en.

Abstracts booklet:
https://kemki.hu/en/events/details/39-Representations_of_the_Holocaust_in_the_Cold_War_Eastern_Bloc_the_Early_Decades

Facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2510457102443655/

Programme

DAY 1
Friday, June 9, 2023

9.30–9.45
Registration

9.45–10.00

Introduction
Agata Pietrasik (Freie Universität, Berlin)
Daniel Véri (Central European Research Institute for Art History, Budapest)

10.00–11.30
PANEL I: EXHIBITING THE HOLOCAUST
chair: Katarzyna Bojarska

Agata Pietrasik (Freie Universität, Berlin)
Between Representation and Erasure: First Exhibitions of the Holocaust in Poland

Piotr Słodkowski (Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw)
Living Memory in Images: Commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the 1940s and 1950s

Daniel Véri (Central European Research Institute for Art History, Budapest)
Forgotten Remembrance, Reconstructed: The 1960s Hungarian Exhibitions in Auschwitz

11.30–12.00
Coffee break

12.00-13.30
PANEL II: CIRCULATION
chair: Agata Pietrasik

Glenn Sujo (artist, writer, educator, London)
East-West: Art, Rhetoric and Indexicality after 1945 (with Raised Arm and Fist)

Alexander Walther (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
Antifascism and Holocaust Art: Lea Grundig’s Drawings in the Soviet Occupation Zone and Early GDR

Oliver Benjamin Hemmerle (University of Education Ludwigsburg)
The Holocaust as a Subsidiary of (Communist) Resistance in the Concentration Camps? Representations in Postal Stamps in the Eastern Bloc (1945–70)

13.30–14.30
Lunch break

14.30–16.00
PANEL III: ART AND WITNESSING
chair: Agata Pietrasik

Katharina Langolf (University of Potsdam)
Mark Zhitnitski and Iosif Kuzkovski: Shoah Memory Activism in the Soviet Union

Katarzyna Bojarska ((SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw)
Female Photographic Gaze: Julia Pirotte Looking at the Kielce Pogrom

Zsófia Farkas (Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, Budapest)
The Nature of Narration: Depiction of the Holocaust on the Works of Eyewitnesses

16.00–16.30
Coffee break

16.30–17.30
Film screening with an introductory lecture

Stanisław Welbel (Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw)
Echoes of the Holocaust in Short Movies by Edward Etler

19.00
Dinner for the participants

DAY 2
Saturday, June 10, 2023

10.00–11.30
PANEL IV: ANTIFASCISM AND THE GDR
chair: Stanisław Welbel

Sophie Thorak (Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg)
Identity Politics and Memory: Representations of the Holocaust and the Auschwitz Trials at the 1965 Intergrafik

Katrin Schmidt (Federal Art Administration, Potsdam)
“O Buchenwald, ich kann dich nicht vergessen“: Herbert Sandberg and his Artistic Contribution to Holocaust Remembrance in the GDR

Barbora Bartunkova (Yale University, New Haven)
Challenging the Nazi Past: The Holocaust and the Memory Politics of East German Cinema

11.30–12.00
Coffee break

12.00–13.30
PANEL V: MEMORIALS
chair: Daniel Véri

Eva Janáčová (Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
Only the Names? The Pinkas Synagogue in Prague

Borbala Kriza (independent researcher, Budapest)
”Martyrs and Peace March.” Ideological Instrumentalization of Holocaust Remembrance in Communist Hungary: The Case of the Balf Monument

Samuel D. Gruber (Syracuse University / International Survey of Jewish Monuments, Syracuse)
Naming Names: The Early History of Memorials That List the Names of Victims

13.30
Closing remarks

13.45
Lunch

Please consider joining our group on Facebook:
Researching the Art of the Holocaust
https://www.facebook.com/groups/artoftheshoah

This group brings together researchers interested in the reception of the Holocaust in fine arts. It is a platform to share news about research, articles, books as well as CFP-s, CFAs, funding and networking opportunities. Please feel free to invite interested researchers and students.