Holocaust Research Experiencing Turbulent Developments, Says Expert

Jerusalem, 27 January, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- Prague (CTK) – Holocaust research is experiencing turbulent development, with historians still focusing most on the topic, but sociologists, anthropologists and scientists from the social and humanities fields are also joining more often. In an interview provided to ČTK by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (AS CR), Michala Jandák Lončíková from the Masaryk Institute and the Archive of the AS CR said this. According to her, the trend is digital humanities and geographical approaches, and since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in 2022, research has focused more on what the Holocaust looked like in this country. Monday is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.

According to Jandák Lončíková, digital data in Holocaust research allows not only to record on a map, but also to use geographical methods for new ways of interpreting and viewing the events of the Holocaust and then approaching them in analysis. “Although the events of the Holocaust themselves are international in nature, just like the Holocaust, its research also takes place differently in different countries,” said Jandák Lončíková. According to her, there is a significant difference in research, for example, in Western Europe and in the former Soviet bloc, where systematic study of the Holocaust began later, in the early 1990s.

The Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic are part of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI). Today, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the inauguration ceremony of the EHRI as a permanent European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) will take place at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

EHRI provides one of its permanent services, the so-called DocumentBlog, which is intended for scientists to regularly share their research findings on a non-academic platform. In 2022, in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, scientists in the consortium decided to create a special unit dedicated to the study of the Holocaust in Ukraine. They also focused on multilingual contributions, the primary being English, but the blog can now also be added in Ukrainian or Russian.

Jandák Lončíková said that the Holocaust was specific in Ukraine and was called the Holocaust by bullets. “On the territory of today’s Ukraine, 1.5 million Jewish victims were murdered during World War II. The region was specific in that after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the mass shooting of Jews began,” she said.

“From my point of view, it is very important to remember events that have societal significance. The Holocaust did not only affect victims and perpetrators, but had an impact on the entire society. It is also important to realize that other groups of Holocaust victims, such as ethnic or sexual orientation victims, have been neglected for a long time,” said Jandák Lončíková. For example, in the Czech Republic, there was no talk for a long time about Roma victims of the Holocaust.