Webinar “Testimonies in Education and Collective Memory“ was held on December 8, 2020.

Webinar participants were:

• Stephen Naron, Director of Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies,
• from Sered Holocaust Museum in Slovakia Dr Martin Korchok, Director and Dr Matej Beranek, Director of education department, and finally,
• Aleksandar Bursac, Archivist and Christian Obsust, Deputy Director of the Archives of Vojvodina.

The webinar was opened by Misko Stanisic, Director of Terraforming. He was also a moderator during the Q & A.

During the opening speech Misko Stanisic reminded the participants that the date of this webinar was chosen purposefully to remind us on December 8, 1941 – the day when the first Jewish inmates were sent to the German concentration camp Judenlager Semlin near Belgrade, today also known as Staro Sajmište.

An Archive of Testimonies

Stephen Naron presented a brief history of the Fortunoff Video Archive of Holocaust Testimonies. The archive is part of the Yale University Library, and has its roots in New Haven, Connecticut, but its collection spans the Americas, Europe, and Israel. For more than three decades the Fortunoff Archive has worked to record, collect, and preserve Holocaust witness testimonies, and to make this archive of testimonies available to researchers, educators, and the general public.

„One of the important things is that we really tried to capture an entire life story of the witness, we’re not exclusively interested in the period of 1933-1935 .“
Stephen Naron, speaking about testimonies

Later on, Mr Naron presented the website that provides access to recorded testimonies, as well as the podcast “Those Who Were There (Voices from Holocaust)”.

Testimonies and Archival Materials in the Educational Program of the Sered Holocaust Museum

Dr Martin Korchok presented a brief history of Slovakian Jews during World War II, followed by a short film about the young peoplе’s impressions after their visit to the Sered Holocaust Museum and meetings with survivors. This short film prepared particularly for our webinar was a real archive of testimonies, with several survivors who participated the movie.

Dr Matej Beranek spoke about the use of archival materials in educational programs of the Sered Holocaust Museum. In particular, Dr Beranek presented the use of antisemitic propaganda posters, period press, historical photos and other documents.

Mapping the Collective Memory

Aleksandar Bursac presented the Archives of Vojvodina’s project „Mapping the Places of Remembrance and the Remembrance Culture of Novi Sad“. The project idea was developed by Christian Obsust, Deputy Director of the Archives of Vojvodina. The idea behind the project is to approach the memorialisation through a combination of archival materials and mapping of the sites in and around the city important for the history of Novi Sad. The main project tool is the project website, where users can access an online interactive map. Mr Bursac told us about various phases of the project development, from analysis of the existing archival material, recording interviews with the citizens about their memories about different locations of the city from the period of socialist Yugoslavia.

„This is my message: call the survivors, help them and be with them cause now we are here for them!“.
Dr Martin Korchok, speaking about the Holocaust survivors in the times of Covid-19