Julia Resnik, Lance Levenson, Friederike Lorenz-Sinai, September 2024

The GIF Young Scientist Meeting (GYSM) took place from 18 – 21 June 2024 at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences and at the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin. The workshop was carried out in a fruitful cooperation between the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, the House of the Wannsee Conference, and the Moses Mendelssohn Center at the University of Potsdam.

Hailing from 12 different universities, colleges, and research institutions across Israel and Germany, 21 researchers from diverse disciplines convened to present their current research and to engage in discussion with colleagues. Lecture topics included ethnographic studies in museums and memorials, the impact of genocide and violent conflict on contemporary communities, and the use of spaces, social media and AI technology in the context of memory.

Opening Session (June 18, 2024)

The opening session was held Tuesday evening at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, where the workshop organizers offered greetings to all participants and guests. Prof. Dr. Julia Resnik (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) outlined the origins of this seminar, Prof. Dr. Friederike Lorenz-Sinai (Potsdam University of Applied Sciences) spoke about the intergenerational memory of the prototypical genocide in history, and Lance Levenson (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) presented an overview of the workshop structure for the coming days. Then Dr. Eric Zimmerman (Director, German Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research) detailed the role of GIF in supporting collaborations between Israeli and German institutions, including this workshop. Subsequent greetings focused on the topic of spaces and places. Prof. Dr. Frank Früchtel (Dean of Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences) explained the origin of the university campus and how it has been used in different historical periods, including during the era of National Socialism and under the GDR. Finally, Prof. Dr. Miriam Rürup (Moses Mendelssohn Center, University of Potsdam) gave a talk on the visibility and invisibility of places, focusing on two different synagogues in Hamburg.

Workshop Day One (June 19, 2024)

The first full day of the workshop was held at the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial Site in Berlin. Our day began with a guided tour of the memorial and reflection round with Dr. Mathias Haß (Deputy Director, House of the Wannsee Conference), followed by three lecture sessions.

Workshop Day Two (June 20, 2024)

Lectures were delivered across four sessions, in which participants benefited from fruitful discussion and exchange of ideas. The seminar day ended with a hands-on “response*able drawing workshop, offered by Sarah Hegenbart (Technical University of Munich, Germany) in conjunction with local Berlin-based artist Kaj Osteroth.

Overall, participants benefited from an exceptionally interdisciplinary seminar, with lectures drawing from the fields of psychology, social work, history, sociology, anthropology, media and communication, history education, education, and didactics.

Many common themes emerged across the presentations, including the digitalization of memory, personal memory versus institutional memory, collective memory and trauma, critical examinations of memorials sites, and the link between personal intergenerational memory (or lack of memory) and institutions or memorials which construct and reconstruct memory.

The seminar concluded with Prof. Dr. Julia Resnik leading a round-table reflection on the workshop, followed by a discussion about a possible special journal issue as an outcome of the seminar.