The Workshop on History and Memory of National Socialist Concentration Camps is taking place annually since 1994. As an international conference self-organized by PhD candidates it provides a forum for the presentation and discussion of new research projects and questions. Young scholars are given the possibility of a professional exchange in a cooperative atmosphere. As an interdisciplinary forum the workshop explicitly includes projects from different fields of research.
This year’s workshop will take place from October 2 to 6, 2013 in Kassel, in cooperation with the memorials in Moringen and Breitenau and under the patronage of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. It is entitled “Stigmatisation – Marginalisation – Persecution”. The former National Socialist coercion camps Breitenau and Moringen served, among others, as a concentration camp, “work education camp”, workhouse and “preventive arrest youth camp” and thus represent key aspects of this year’s focus. They exemplify continuities of the mechanisms of social exclusion. In order to emphasize the focus, the workshop includes the visit of the two memorials as well as discussions with the memorial staff.
Various groups of persecuted people were integrated into historic research and public awareness only decades after the end of the National Socialist regime – this especially refers to the persecution, detention and murdering of people stigmatised as “asocials”, of prostitutes, homosexuals, persons with disabilities, “criminals”, “gypsies” and others. The workshop will focus on the symbolical and physical exclusion of different groups from the National Socialist “people’s community” (“Volksgemeinschaft”).
Given this focus, we do not use a narrow definition of “concentration camps” for the conference. Rather, all places covered by the concept of “National Socialist coercion camps” (“nationalsozialistische Zwangslager”, Benz/Distel) shall be regarded. Also, the mechanisms of stigmatisation and persecution in the German Reich and various countries, especially states occupied by or collaborating with the National Socialist regime during WW II are to be analysed in a comparative manner. At the same time, continuities of exclusion beyond the years 1933–1945 are to be highlighted.
The workshop is explicitly directed at young scholars who concentrate on subjects so far marginalised and neglected in scientific research and who can contribute to new impulses on research.
The 19th Workshop on History and Memory of National Socialist Concentration Camps will include the following key aspects:
1) Marginalisation and stigmatisation in National Socialism
In the first panel, projects shall be presented that deal with the research on single groups of persecuted people and analyse processes of social stigmatisation, exclusion from the “people’s community” as well as of state repression. Also, the role of different actors and institutions, social foundations and traditions of stigmatisation both before and after 1933 can be focused on. New impetus for research can also be derived from transnational and comparative projects in this field.
2) “Marginalised people” in the concentration camp – marginalisation in the concentration camp?
This panel includes research projects dealing with living (or survival) and working conditions of prisoners inside the coercion camps, the perpetrators, the system of “prisoner functionaries”, social hierarchies and structural matters of the camp system. This panel also confers special attention to groups on which little research has been done so far, on matters of social order and continuities of stigmatisation inside the camps as well as on questions of self-perception and perception of others in different prisoner groups.
3) Continuities of marginalisation: stigmatised groups in research and public memory after 1945
In the third panel, projects dealing with marginalisation of different places and groups of persecuted people in research and memory culture are to be presented. Questions regarding a potential continuity of marginalisation after 1945 shall include both a reflection on history of memory as well as ways of articulation of the formerly persecuted and an analysis of ongoing stigmatisation and exclusion on a political, social and legal level.
Idea and application
As a forum for young scholars the workshop provides advanced students, post-graduates and PhD candidates with the opportunity to discuss different scientific approaches in a constructive way and to address problems and questions. We do not expect the presentation of completed theses but rather the discussion of current research projects. The workshop aims to provide young researchers with an opportunity to present research projects in an atmosphere free of academic hierarchies.
Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes and should offer the background for a subsequent discussion (ca. 35 minutes). The lecturers are requested to submit the script of their paper in advance for all participants (10 pages maximum, in English or German with an English abstract).
Due to the interdisciplinary character of the workshop the call for papers is not only aimed at historians but at young scholars of different disciplines who deal with the history and memory of National Socialist concentration camps or other coercion camps in their projects and who can contribute to the main focus “Stigmatisation – Marginalisation – Persecution”.
Non-German participants are explicitly invited to apply. Conference languages will be German and English. Simultaneous translation of the lectures will be provided. We are currently applying for funding to cover costs of the conference as well as travel and accommodation costs. Papers presented in the workshop will be published. Applicants are asked to send an abstract (two pages maximum) of their paper together with a short CV until March 10, 2013 to the following address:
19 [dot] workshop [dot] orgateam [at] gmail [dot] comAccepted applicants will be informed not later than April 14, 2013. For those interested to participate without presenting, a call for participation will be released shortly.
The organising team
Marco Brenneisen, Christine Eckel, Laura Haendel, Jan Kwiatkowski, Julia Pietsch
