Jewish Museum

After the Second World War, the situation of synagogues in Hungary was unique compared to other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. While in Poland, Czechoslovakia or Germany a large number of synagogues were demolished, in Hungary – with the exception of a few cases – such destruction did not take place. Nevertheless, as a result of the demographic catastrophe caused by the Holocaust and the ensuing internal migration and emigration, most of the synagogues in the countryside were gradually abandoned and fell into disrepair. After the 1956 revolution, the National Association of Hungarian Israelites, for various reasons (such as economic considerations, political pressure, etc.), decided in the 1960s and 1970s to sell some 60–70 synagogues to the state or local companies. The authorities then used either the building or the land, intentionally or unintentionally erasing the memory of the once thriving Jewish community. Thus, the transfer of ownership of synagogues during the Kádár era became a widespread phenomenon and even a general policy in the interaction between the state and Jewish representatives. The problem of abandoned synagogues has been on the agenda in Hungary ever since, and various attempts have been made to address the issue over the past seven decades. Based on archival material and oral history interviews, this paper outlines the historical context in which the sale of synagogues took place and analyses how the policy of dealing with the material heritage of the former Jewish communities during the Kádár era and since has been shaped as an act of remembrance

This piece addresses some misunderstandings regarding Raphael Lemkin's early years in Poland, his influences and the development of his ideas. While discussing some of the extent published information, I point out what other archival documents from Poland and the League of Nations have to say about Lemkin's past. One of the main points is that Lemkin was an unreliable narrator on his own life, and this has caused confusion.

The collection at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (OJMCHE) is the largest documented and visual history of the Jewish people of Oregon: those whose families arrived as some of the earliest European settlers, those who have arrived as refugees of the Holocaust and from the Soviet Union, and American Jews who have relocated to make Oregon their home. Our collections constitute the material culture of the Jewish community in books, journals, manuscripts, papers, photographs, maps, audio recordings, ceremonial objects, and ethnographic artifacts representing families, clubs, synagogues, businesses, philanthropic organizations, and community agencies from the mid-1800s to the present day. As an institution committed to documenting the history and experiences of Oregon Jews, we became interested relatively early in the pandemic in capturing COVID-19 stories from people in our community. We were in the midst of exploring collecting options when the Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM) sent out a call to member institutions for participation in a nationwide project chronicling the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating projects would collect stories from their regional Jewish communities about the experiences during the pandemic, as well as stories of experiences in and around the social justice struggles of 2020, the campaign year, the election and presidential transition, the wildfires, and, later, the development and administration of the COVID-19 vaccine. We eagerly joined the larger CAJM network in this large-scale oral history project in order to share resources and have colleagues with whom to problem solve. This project was originally intended to run for eight months, from July 2020 to February 2021. We committed to try to collect 150 interviews within that window. I began actively recruiting and training volunteers in 14

Abstract Folklorists are uniquely positioned at the nexus of historical and heritage consciousness, with a keen eye for emergent cultural practices, often ephemeral, which may draw on tradition or represent something entirely new. Collecting the present, or what has been called contemporary collecting or rapid-response collecting, is called for in anticipation of a future when the present, experienced as already historical, will have become past.

An astounding number of books were destroyed over the course of World War II. 1 In the words of historian Jonathan Rose, the "story of the Six Million [murdered Jews] is also the story of the One Hundred Million," referring to the number of books the Nazis destroyed in Europe alone. 2Many millions more, wide-ranging in terms of language, age, genre, and so on, survived the war but still suffered sometimes devastating effects due to theft, plunder, looting, dislocation, wartime destruction, and simple neglect.In 1945, Polish literary scholar and librarian Maria Danilewicz (1907-2003) described the impact: "During the six years of war […] not only human beings were killed, destroyed, and dispersed but also their silent friends -books." 3 Danilewicz's equation of the wartime experiences of books with those of people illustrates the emotionality of people's relationships with books.That emotionality, coupled with national, international, institutional, and organizational identity and power struggles, became the driving force in postwar debates regarding ownership and rights to surviving books.

Although martial law in Poland, introduced on 13 December 1981, was lifted on 22 July 1983, its effects were decisive on several levels until the 1989 transition to democratic rule. Beyond the persecution of the opposition – from the internment and imprisonment of its leaders to the fragmentation of Solidarity – it also put an end to any lingering belief in the system’s reformability and gradually forced the Jaruzelski regime onto the path of expediency. Thus, in addition to the deepening economic crisis, the need to reach a mutual compromise brought to the negotiating table the leadership of the state and Lech Wałęsa’s Citizens’ Committee as the constructive opposition. As a conse- quence, other opposition organisations such as Fighting Solidarity, the Confederation of Independent Poland or the Federation of Fighting Youth sharply criticised not only the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR), but also the mainstream opposition, which was ready to compromise. They pointed to the worst sins of the communist regime, which had become a negotiating partner, with the latest martial law at their head. The clash of these morally-based criticisms with the views of those trying to avoid further bloodshed through negotiations deepened the internal conflicts of the Polish opposition and have proven to be crucial in the contemporary assessment of Poland’s transition from Communism to the present democratic system.

In the face of unimaginably violent systems, our most vulnerable bodies — sick, disabled, unable to rise from bed — offer the resistance of imperative vulnerability. What can we learn from the body that cannot help but fail? How can porosity perform treachery within entrenched opressions? What kind of reading and relationship to text can enrich relationship instead of inscribing boundaries between us? What does it mean to accept the unacceptable, and what kind of power becomes available when we submit to forces larger than ourselves? How might we take refuge in discomfort, and in the process refuse the stale comforts offered by hyper-capitalist economics and white supremacy? Static Palace, a collection of linked essays, weaves the writer’s experiences of chronic illness and activism under Trump rule to explore the possibility that arises from circumstances we often perceive as ruin: hopeless political systems, disabled bodies, narratives that stutter and do not complete themselves, the devastation of climate change. Spurred by the writer’s diagnosis with endometriosis and accompanying chronic conditions — which occurred immediately following the 2016 US Presidential Election — Static Palace is especially relevant in the context of rising fascism, pandemics, and the decay of social services and support networks. A direct engagement with the patchwork, fragmented brain of digital life and sick brain, Static Palace is part lyric essay and part cultural criticism: it pulls from current events, including Black-led resistance movements and disability justice activism, and cites contemporary thinkers on gender, feminism, care, critical race, and disability studies towards an artful treatment of crisis and community. Its concerns move toward connection and inter-being. By threading a wide variety of theories and politics through the personal, Fridman seeks a fertile integrity through — and with — subjectivity. We witness a mind making, culling, and attempting to stave off isolation through intertextual and interpersonal conversation. This work complicates the meaning of belonging, family and tribe, challenges our impulses toward narrative resolution, and offers a nuanced understanding of interdependent being and thought.

PreviousNext No Access19th International Conference on Ground Penetrating RadarArchaeological GPR investigation of the Bersohn and Bauman Jewish Children’s Hospital in Warsaw, Poland: Locating potential Holocaust artifactsAuthors: Grace UchytilHarry M. JolAbigail FischerNoah HallRichard FreundPaul BaumanAlastair McClymontColin MiazgaPhilip ReederJacek KonikJoe BeckConnor JolKayla SingletonMikayla Martinez DettingerGrace UchytilUniversity of Wisconsin-Eau ClaireSearch for more papers by this author, Harry M. JolUniversity of Wisconsin-Eau ClaireSearch for more papers by this author, Abigail FischerUniversity of Wisconsin-Eau ClaireSearch for more papers by this author, Noah HallUniversity of Wisconsin-Eau ClaireSearch for more papers by this author, Richard FreundChristopher Newport UniversitySearch for more papers by this author, Paul BaumanBGC EngineeringSearch for more papers by this author, Alastair McClymontBGC EngineeringSearch for more papers by this author, Colin MiazgaBGC EngineeringSearch for more papers by this author, Philip ReederDuquesne UniversitySearch for more papers by this author, Jacek KonikWarsaw Ghetto MuseumSearch for more papers by this author, Joe BeckUniversity of Wisconsin-Eau ClaireSearch for more papers by this author, Connor JolUniversity of British ColumbiaSearch for more papers by this author, Kayla SingletonChristopher Newport UniversitySearch for more papers by this author, and Mikayla Martinez DettingerChristopher Newport UniversitySearch for more papers by this authorhttps://doi.org/10.1190/gpr2022-163.1 SectionsAboutPDF/ePub ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Abstract During the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto, in Warsaw, Poland became one of the major centers for Jewish confinement. Near the center of the Warsaw Ghetto was the Bersohn and Bauman Jewish Children’s Hospital. This was a fully functional hospital which opened in 1878 but became overloaded with patients during World War II. Many sick children died there because of terrible conditions and lack of medical resources in the ghetto and hospital. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) was used to investigate the basement of the hospital, and the only undisturbed grassed land adjacent to it, a courtyard behind the building. Multiple GPR surveys were conducted to determine if any buried historical artifacts or human burials are still present, suggesting Jewish resistance. These surveys were conducted at the hospital grounds, using an antennae frequency of 500 MHz, a 2cm step size, and 0.25m line spacing for all grids. Grid sizes of 34m x 10.5m in the courtyard and 4.5m x 3m in the basement were surveyed. Data was then processed using EKKO_Project software. “V” and channel like shaped reflection patterns are observed between 0.2m and 0.60m depth outside and hyperbolic patterns in the basement between 0.25m and 0.75m depth in the basement. The reflections indicate the potential presence of hole like features and pipes. The GPR data will help direct future archaeological investigations to similar locations of buried artifacts and Hospital will aid archaeologists and historians in telling the story of how hospital staff and patients attempted to preserve items as evidence of their existence during this genocide. Locating human remains will provide clarity and closure to the families of the children who died there. Keywords: sensors, reflection, time slice, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), attenuationPermalink: https://doi.org/10.1190/gpr2022-163.1FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 19th International Conference on Ground Penetrating RadarISSN (online):2159-6832Copyright: 2022 Pages: 166 publication data© 2022 Published in electronic format with permission by the Society of Exploration GeophysicistsPublisher:Society of Exploration Geophysicists HistoryPublished Online: 13 Oct 2022 CITATION INFORMATION Grace Uchytil, Harry M. Jol, Abigail Fischer, Noah Hall, Richard Freund, Paul Bauman, Alastair McClymont, Colin Miazga, Philip Reeder, Jacek Konik, Joe Beck, Connor Jol, Kayla Singleton, and Mikayla Martinez Dettinger, (2022), "Archaeological GPR investigation of the Bersohn and Bauman Jewish Children’s Hospital in Warsaw, Poland: Locating potential Holocaust artifacts," SEG Global Meeting Abstracts : 31-34. https://doi.org/10.1190/gpr2022-163.1 Plain-Language Summary Keywordssensorsreflectiontime sliceground-penetrating radar (GPR)attenuationPDF DownloadLoading ...

The topic of the paper is the use of audioguides in the contemporary museum practice. It includes an overview of the development of the audioguides and their use since their implementation, the Czech and world research and case studies as well as the guidance through the process of creating an audioguide. It also deals with the audioguides designed for the visually impaired visitors and their specific requirements.