Beiträge

Conference on 14 May 2025, 12:00–18:00

German Resistance Memorial Center (Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand)
Stauffenbergstraße 13, 10785 Berlin

In recent years and throughout Europe, actors across the political spectrum, including elected politicians, exploited the memory of the Holocaust—the genocide committed by the Nazis against the European and North-African Jews—for political gain. While Holocaust denial is a criminal offence in most EU states, distortion often appears in ways that evade prosecution. Manifestations of Holocaust denial and distortion vary according to societal and political contexts: Some imagery appears online and offline across Europe—such as yellow stars labelled ‚unvaccinated‘ during the COVID-19 pandemic or equations of the actions of the Israeli government to those of the Nazis. Other forms are unique to specific countries.

Holocaust denial and distortion are always deeply intertwined in the national political landscape and remembrance culture. To fully grasp how the Holocaust is remembered, studied, understood and weaponized, it is essential to consider the broader societal context. This includes historical narratives on various forms of perpetratorship as well as the legacy of state socialism and how these are discussed in European migration societies. Controversial debates on Holocaust commemoration are frequently projected onto Holocaust memorial sites and museums, creating tension with their objective to foster critical historical consciousness. The erosion of Holocaust commemoration increasingly leads to antisemitic incidents and public defamation of those sites, incited by actors from across the political spectrum.

For Jews and their communities, the denial and trivialisation of the Holocaust scorns the memory of the most traumatic event in Jewish history. For practitioners in the field of research, monitoring, education and policy-making on antisemitism, Holocaust denial and distortion are a constantly evolving challenge in identifying new narratives and developing strategies to counter these.

This conference will bring together experts from different fields to analyse current trends, discuss their impact, and explore strategies for countering misinformation and historical falsification. Key questions include:

• How do Holocaust denial and distortion vary across European countries in terms of imagery and function? How are those influenced by various forms of perpetratorship and the legacy of state socialism?
• What drives Holocaust denial and distortion, and how does it affect Jewish communities, Holocaust survivors and their descendants?
• How do Holocaust denial and distortion spread online transnationally, how is it linked to offline forms and what strategies can counter it?
• What role do institutions of remembrance, such as memorials, play as a contested field of historical politics 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz?

The conference “Defeating Distortion“ is public and aimed at civic educators, researchers, public service workers, politicians, diplomats and the media.

Conference Details

This conference is the closing event of the project Standardised Recording of Holocaust Distortion in Five European Countries according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) non-legally binding working definition of Holocaust denial and distortion. Since June 2024 the project has been raising awareness for Holocaust denial and distortion on social media as a part of the campaign #FACTSMATTER Defend Truth, Defeat Distortion.

Admission is free of charge and is subject to registration at https://gstoo.de/defeatingdistortion until 13th May 2025

The event will be held in English.

Organisers

The conference is organised by the Bundesverband RIAS e. V., part of the European Network on Monitoring Antisemitism (ENMA). ENMA aims to provide internationally comparable data on antisemitic incidents.

Funding & Campaign

The conference is funded as part of the project Standardised Recording of Holocaust Distortion in Five European Countries. Since June 2024 the project has been raising awareness for Holocaust denial and distortion on social media as part of the campaign #FACTSMATTER Defend Truth, Defeat Distortion.

Webinar
December 3, 2024, 14:00 – 16:00 (UTC+2)

 Education on antisemitism and the amplification of Jewish perspectives on antisemitism are more important today than ever. With rising antisemitic incidents, the need to engage with the lived experiences of survivors and their descendants is critical for understanding the ongoing impact of antisemitism. This webinar will introduce educational materials that focus on Jewish perspectives on antisemitism, both past and present. The materials provide crucial insights into how Holocaust survivors and their families navigate the enduring legacies of trauma and prejudice. The webinar will also give an insight into the testimonies of the October 7th massacres.

The event will highlight two interview projects, conducted in 2022 and 2023, from the Bundesverband RIAS, that offer powerful testimonies from survivors and their descendants. The first project, “Learning from the Past— Acting in the Present”, features interviews with eight Shoah survivors and some of their families, exploring how antisemitism has persisted over time and continues to impact Jewish communities. The interviewees discuss their survival during National Socialism, share personal experiences with antisemitism, and address the issue of transgenerational trauma. The second project, “Continuities and Discontinuities”, focuses on the 2nd and 3rd generation of Holocaust survivors. Through four interviews, it examines how transgenerational trauma shapes identity and their ongoing struggle against contemporary antisemitism. The descendants reflect on how their family histories influenced their upbringing and the role those experiences play in their lives today. Personal encounters with current forms of antisemitism, as well as their dramatic rise, are central to the interviews—most of which were conducted shortly after the massacres of October 7,  2023.
Additionally, the USC Shoah Foundation‘s interview project, that captures the testimonies of October 7th survivors and witnesses, will be introduced. Since the October 7th massacres in Israel, the USC Shoah Foundation has been conducting and collecting hundreds of interviews of survivors and witness as part of their initiative to document contemporary antisemitism.

Key questions to be explored include:

• How do survivors and their descendants reflect on Holocaust distortion and denial?
• What roles do testimonies and Jewish perspectives on antisemitism play in education and identity formation?
• What are the common and unique challenges faced by different EU countries in this regard?

The webinar will feature presentations from Benjamin Steinitz, Executive Director of Bundesverband RIAS, and Vanessa Gelardo, Educational Trainer of Bundesverband RIAS, who will introduce the interview projects and their educational applications. Lukas Welz, Executive Director of AMCHA, will discuss the impact of Holocaust denial and distortion on survivors and their descendants today. Crispin Brooks, archivist at the USC Shoah Foundation, gives an insight into an interview project with October 7th survivors and witnesses. The event will also include a panel discussion featuring experts from the European Network on Monitoring Antisemitism (ENMA), who will explore the role of survivor testimonies in education across different European contexts.

The webinar offers a live Q&A session, allowing participants to engage with the speakers.

Registration

Register for the webinar via Guestoo https://gstoo.de/enma-education by December 2, 2024.

Schedule

14:00 – 14:05
Opening Remarks
Benjamin Steinitz, Executive Director of the Bundesverband RIAS

14:05 – 14:35
“Learning from the Past—Acting in the Present”—Introducing the Interview Projects
Vanessa Gelardo, Educational Trainer of Bundesverband RIAS

14:35 – 14:50
USC Shoah Foundation’s interviews with October 7th survivors and witnesses
Crispin Brooks, Archivist at USC Shoah Foundation

14:50– 15:10
The Impact of Holocaust Denial and Distortion for Survivors and Descendants Today
Lukas Welz, Executive Director AMCHA

15:10 – 15:30
Q&A Session

15:30 – 16:00
Panel Discussion: The Role of Testimonies of Shoah Survivors and the 2nd and 3rd Generations in Education – Similarities and Differences in International Comparison
Murilo Cambruzzi (CDEC, Italy)
Jakub Král (FZO (Czech Republic)
Anna Makówka-Kwapisiewicz (Czulent, Poland)
Judith Stein (IKG Vienna, Austria)

Conference on 9 September 2024, 13.30 – 19:00

House of the Wannsee Conference Educational and Memorial Site
Am Großen Wannsee 56-58, 14109 Berlin

In Europe, the crimes of the Nazis are increasingly being instrumentalised by actors from different political camps for their own political agendas, further normalising the trivialisation and denial of the Holocaust in society. This is happening against the backdrop of very different social contexts: During the conspiracy-driven protests against the measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, which extended far into the centre of society, anti-vaccination activists symbolically staged themselves as the ‘persecuted of the present’ by wearing yellow armbands, and portrayed the German government as the new Nazi dictatorship. Overall, in the first year of the pandemic, over 60% of the antisemitic incidents related to COVID-19 exhibited forms of post-Shoah antisemitism, as analyses of the RIAS reporting offices show. Since the massacres of 7 October 2023, against the backdrop of the war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli actions have repeatedly been equated with those of the Nazis. A third of the almost 2,800 antisemitic incidents between 7 October and 31 December 2023 contained such comparisons. The increase in Holocaust denial and distortion is not a German phenomenon but can be observed internationally.

• What exactly is the situation in Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic and what similarities and differences can be observed?
• How do these forms of antisemitism manifest in the context of current events, and from whom do they originate?
• How do the denial and distortion of the Holocaust affect survivors and their descendants?
• And what insights into the denial and distortion of the Holocaust are made possible by the recording of antisemitic incidents by civil society?

These questions will be examined at the “Distorting History” conference on the basis of the commonalities and specifics of Holocaust denial and distortion in five European countries. The basis for the comparative analysis is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of Holocaust denial and distortion.

Conference Details

The conference “Distorting History” is public and aimed at experts from education, research, administration, and the media.

Admission is free of charge and is subject to registration at https://gstoo.de/DistortingHistory until 6th September 2024

The event will be held in English.

The conference is organised by the Bundesverband RIAS e. V. (Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism), part of the European Network on Monitoring Antisemitism (ENMA). ENMA aims to provide internationally comparable data on antisemitic incidents.

The conference is funded as part of the project Standardised Recording of Holocaust Distortion in Five European Countries. Since June 2024 the project has been raising awareness for Holocaust denial and distortion on social media as part of the campaign #FACTSMATTER Defend Truth, Defeat Distortion.

3. July 2024: Holocaust denial and distortion continue to be a widespread threat to Jewish life and European democratic values transcending national borders. A new social media campaign by ENMA – the European Network on Monitoring Antisemitism – seeks to raise awareness of contemporary forms of Holocaust denial and distortion and counter harmful antisemitic misconceptions. The campaign is based on transnational data on antisemitic incidents recorded by ENMA member organisations.

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