Eastern European Engagements with the Holocaust in Exile and Emigration

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Joachim von Puttkamer
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 540502196

The project examines central topoi and narratives with reference to the Holocaust on the basis of relevant exile publications and journals as well as the archival records of central emigrant associations and institutions. It investigates which internal and external impulses triggered a preoccupation with the Holocaust, which political conjunctures and personal continuities, and the relationship of organized emigrants and exiles with the Jewish communities in their host countries. The subproject also explores the question of how the engagement with the Holocaust among these communities contributed before 1989 to the knowledge of the extermination of the European Jews, including the specific locations of mass murder. The first phase of the subproject focuses on Polish and Ukrainian exile, emigrant and diaspora communities and associations in Western Europe and North America.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants