Image: Mapping the last known addresses of Viennese Holocaust victims in Vienna.
Source: DÖW

Tuesday, 31st March, 2020

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:

• Specific phenomena relating to the eviction and resettlement by the Nazi regime within a city such as Jewish group apartments ("Sammelwohnungen") or Jewish houses ("Judenhäuser");
  
  
• Research analysis of local phenomena through Spatial Studies on the Holocaust;
  
  
• Different local or state-wide housing policies of the Nazi regime of eviction and resettlement of Jews prior to deportation;
  
  
• Focus on the experiences of individuals via the use of testimonies
  
  
• Changes to Holocaust research in recent years through digital applications on the "ghettoization" of Jews in urban districts;
  
  
• Papers discussing didactic approaches to insights into the eviction and resettlement of Jews within a city space.

Abstracts of up to 300 words along with short CV (up to 100 words), under the subject "DOEW Conference - Persecution at Home", should be sent by 15th May 2020 to cfp@doew.at. Applicants will be notified by 30th May 2020.

Travel and accommodation bursaries are available for participants.

The workshop in funded by the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria; an application for support has been submitted to the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism.

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