The Women in the Holocaust is an inaugural conference of WHISC – Women in the Holocaust International Study Center of the Moreshet Mordechai Anielevich Memorial Holocaust Study and Research Center – Givat Haviva, Israel, organized in partnership with the ShoahLab: Holocaust Studies Laboratory IFDT and NGO Haver Srbija at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory 10–12 October 2023.
The conference opened up a scholarly discussion and debate on the various divides, connections, and intersections that can be found in Holocaust and gender studies about women in the Holocaust.
Lily Zamir and Yaakov Asher, Co-founders and Co-directors of WHISC, Lee Backman, Claims Conference, H. E. Ambassador to Israel Yahel Vilan, Milovan Pisarri, Coordinator of ShoahLab IFDT, Dragana Stojanović, representative of Haver Srbija, and Tamara Plećaš, Deputy Director of IFDT
Keynote lecture - Why is the History of Women in the Holocaust Important and the Necessity of Researching it
Yehuda Bauer, Professor Emeritus of History and Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem
Keynote lecture - Women Shaping Holocaust Studies
Carol Rittner, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Holocaust & Genocide Studies, and Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor Emerita of Holocaust Studies, Stockton University of New Jersey, USA; Honorary President of WHISC – Women in the Holocaust International Study Center
Chair: Ljiljana Pantović, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University of Belgrade (Serbia)
Beverley Chalmers, International Perinatal Health Consultant, University of the Witwatersrand (Canada); WHISC – Women in the Holocaust International Study Center, Givat Haviva (Israel)
Manipulating Birth to Implement Genocide
Sarah Valente, Baruch College Sandra Kahn Wasserman Jewish Studies Center, City University of New York, USA and Coral Katave, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (USA)
Women in the Holocaust: The Abandonment of Medical Ethics
Angela Ford, The University of Texas at Dallas (USA)
Sex for Life: Conditions that Necessitated Sexual Barter in the Holocaust
Chair: Dragana Stojanović, Faculty of Media and Communication, Singidunum University; Haver Srbija (Serbia)
Alex Kor, Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine (USA)
Eva Kor: From Transylvania to Tel Aviv to Terre Haute – A Journey of Hope, Healing and Forgiveness
Shannon Quigley, Weiss-Livnat Center for Holocaust Research and Education, University of Haifa (Israel)
When Women Entered the Conversation: Post-Shoah Jewish-Christian Dialogue and the Religious Thought of Women
Keynote lecture - The Gender Perspective in the Writings by Jewish Women Holocaust Survivors in Yugoslavia
Krinka Vidaković Petrov, Principal Research Fellow, Former Ambassador of Yugoslavia to Israel, Director of „Staro Sajmište“ Memorial Center, Republic of Serbia
Chair: Krinka Vidaković Petrov, „Staro Sajmište“ Memorial Center, Republic of Serbia (Serbia)
Tal Bashan, “Beit Terezin” Holocaust Remembrance Center for the Czech Jewry, Kibbutz Givat Haim Ichud (Israel)
Feminine Dilemmas in the Ghetto and Concentration Camp: The Testimonies of Ruth Bondy
Roseanna Ramsden, Montague Burton Research and Teaching Fellow in Jewish Studies, University of Leeds (UK)
Reanalyzing Familiar Narratives: Representations of Queerness in Women’s Published Testimonies of the Holocaust
Sara R. Horowitz, Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, York University in Toronto (Canada)
“Since when can’t a virgin be a whore?”: The Dynamics of Shame and Agency in Women’s Accounts of the Shoah
Stanislava Barać, Institute for Literature and Arts in Belgrade (Serbia)
A Possible Approach to the Holocaust Experience and Memory Activism of the Yugoslav (Screen) Writer Frida Filipović
Chair: Lily Halpert Zamir, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem; WHISC – Women in the Holocaust International Study Center, Givat Haviva (Israel)
Batya Brutin, Beit Berl Academic College; The Chair of the Abraham and Edita Spiegel for Holocaust Research, Bar-Ilan University (Israel)
Halina Olomucki: Art as Documentation
Pnina Rosenberg, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (Israel)
“My War Adventures: 1 September 1939 – ?”: Dora Schaul’s Autographic Diary in Rieucros French Women’s Camp
Dana Mihăilescu, University of Bucharest (Romania)
Haunting Specters of Holocaust Perpetration and Victimhood Reconstituting a Young Child’s Memory Lens: On Miriam Katin’s Graphic Memoirs “We Are on Our Own” and “Letting It Go”
Chair: Sarah Valente, Baruch College Sandra Kahn Wasserman Jewish Studies Center, City University of New York (USA)
Lily Halpert Zamir, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem; WHISC – Women in the Holocaust International Study Center, Givat Haviva (Israel)
The Lily of Birkenau – The Writings of Lili Kasticher
Joanna Sliwa, Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (USA) (online)
An Unlikely Rescuer: A Jewish Woman Who Saved Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust
Paul J. Kutner, American University
Intersectionality: Female and Gay Resistance in Dieulefit
Chair: Verena Meier, Research Centre on Antigypsyism, University of Heidelberg (Germany)
Bruna Lo Biundo, Past/Not Past (France) and Caroline François, Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris (France)
The Diverging Fates of Perla Golda et Mindla Diament: Two Polish Jewish Sisters in the French Resistance
Alessandro Matta, Sardinian Shoah Memorial Association (Italy)
Sardinian Jewish Women During the Holocaust – Between Resistance and Genocide
Sylwia Szymańska-Smolkin, Södertörn University in Stockholm (Sweden)
The Fabrics of Resistance: The Contribution of Female Jewish Couriers in the Second World War
Chair: Joanna Sliwa, Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (USA)
Dalia Ofer, Max and Rita Haber Professor Emerita of Holocaust and East European Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel)
Mothers and Motherhood in the Ghettos: Re-considering the Images from Diaries and Testimonies
Micaela Procopio, Gratz College (USA)
Clandestine Abortions as Resistance During the Holocaust
Tiarra Cooper, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Gendered Bodies as Sites of Reproductive Investigation: Probing Female Holocaust Survivors’ Fertility 1940-2022
Chair: Milovan Pisarri, ShoahLab: Holocaust Studies Laboratory, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade (Serbia)
Verena Meier, Research Centre on Antigypsyism, University of Heidelberg (Germany)
The Genocide of Sinti and Roma from a Gender-historical Perspective
Claire Topsom, Royal Holloway University in London (UK)
Female ‘Asocials’: The Unworthy Victim
Jesse Tannetta, Gratz College (USA)
Female Perpetrators within the Concentration Camp System
Randi Becker, University of Passau (Germany)
Research Projects with Prospective Teachers on Local Women History in Gießen
Chair: Dragana Stojanović, Faculty of Media and Communication, Singidunum University; Haver Srbija (Serbia)
Roy Horovitz, Bar-Ilan University; David Yellin Academic College (Israel)
Actresses as Memory Keepers: The Stories of Lea Koenig and Miriam Zohar, Israel Prize for Theatre Laureates
Nevena Daković, Faculty of Drama Arts, University of Arts in Belgrade (Serbia)
Ecriture Feminine of the Holocaust: Hilda Dajč and Diana Budisavljević
Jane Saginaw, University of Texas at Dallas (USA)
Poetry of Women in the Holocaust
Tamara Plećaš, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University of Belgrade (Serbia)
Unveiling the Emotions of Love, Fear, and Hope: Women of the Holocaust
Chair: Vera Mevorah, ShoahLab: Holocaust Studies Laboratory, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University of Belgrade (Serbia)
Žarka Svirčev, Institute for Literature and Arts, Belgrade (Serbia)
Women Writers and the Holocaust in The Jewish Almanac
Katarzyna Taczyńska, University College Dublin (Ireland)
“Minsk, my Minsk, the old Bolshevik”: Sara Kagan’s Poetry as a Mirror of the Transformation and Development of Secular Jewish Culture in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
Natalija Perišić, Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade (Serbia)
Implications of the Holocaust for a Woman – Experiencing the Post-Holocaust Migrant Integration with Sophie Zawistowska