News
Date: 1 June 2026, 6 PM
Venue: OVK of the Jewish Museum in Prague
The retributive justice system in the Czech lands was among the strictest in postwar Europe. Among those who were held accountable for their wartime actions were those who had participated in the persecution of Jews and Roma. Due to the extraordinary nature of the retribution trials and the limited time available to investigators, survivors played a crucial role in initiating investigations and during the trials. The lecture will focus on the efforts of Jewish and Romani survivors to secure punishment for those who participated in the persecution of their families and communities. The aim is to shed light on the factors that influenced the survivors’ efforts and how the state administration responded to these efforts.
May 7, 2026 | 10:00 AM | Office Foyer, South Moravian Region, Žerotínovo nám. 449/3, Brno
You are cordially invited to the opening of the exhibition “Lives Cut Short. Searching for Refuge during the Holocaust: The Story of Ruth Maier.” The opening will include a round table discussion titled “The Price of Safety: Searching for Refuge Then and Now,” as well as a presentation of the newly established Ruth Maier Foundation.
Leonie is a PhD candidate at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich and a Research associate at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich.
May 19, 2026 | 4:00 PM | Meeting point at Mama Shelter hotel
Join us for a walk through Prague 7, during which you will learn about the MemoMap Prague application, created by the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS (MÚA) as a service of the Czech node of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-CZ).
The program also included a meeting of the National Coordinators Committee, one of the governing bodies of EHRI-ERIC. National coordinators presented the activities of their respective national nodes and outlined their plans for the current year. The Czech node was represented by its national coordinator, Magdalena Sedlická.
Otte Wallish was born in Znojmo in 1906. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, opened his own graphic studio in Prague in the early 1930s, and regularly collaborated with the Jewish National Fund. He designed mainly advertising leaflets, film posters, and did graphic book design. In 1934, he moved to Mandatory Palestine, where he continued his work. In 1948, he graphically designed the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, created the first Israeli stamps and coins, and participated in the design of the Israeli police emblem. In addition to state commissions, he also worked on commercial projects – he created several thousand posters, some of which are icons of graphic design in Israel. Eva Janáčová’s exhibition will present Otte Wallish’s work across all the places where he lived and created.
The conference is taking place 29 March 2026 in Brno, MUNI, Komenského square 2, Sir Roger Scruton Hall Nr. 300.
The post introduces the Norwegian Digital Prisoner Archive 1940–1945 (https://www.fanger.no/). The database provides links to primary and secondary sources from national and international archives relating to nearly 50,000 individuals. These individuals were not necessarily Norwegian citizens; the collection also includes people imprisoned during the Second World War in Norway, or were deported to Norway.
Transnational Workshop of EHRI-CZ and EHRI-AT: Rethinking Holocaust History through Geospatial Approaches
Date: 18–19 May 2026
Venue: Prague, Czech Republic
Deadline for applications: 15 March 2026, submissions in English only
Notification of acceptance: 30 March 2026
Over the past decade, spatial history has emerged as a key dimension of Holocaust research. Mapping projects addressing ghettos, camps, forced labor sites, deportation routes, and places of persecution have demonstrated how geographical perspectives can reveal new insights into the structures and dynamics of Nazi violence and its aftermath. Building on these developments, the workshop organised by the Czech and Austrian national Nodes of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) takes a fresh look at a wide range of spatial methodologies, from established GIS-based approaches to emerging digital techniques.
We would like to invite you to the lecture by literary scholar Alexandra Szczepan: Intimate Cartographies: Maps as Holocaust Testimonies.
Date: 15 January 2026, 6pm
Place: Auditorium OVK 3rd floor, Maiselova 15, Prague 1
A. Szczepan will show how Holocaust witnesses created and used maps as a means to capture their war experiences and post-war memories. The talk will take a closer look at how Holocaust survivors have created and used maps to give testimony about their experiences both during and after the war. It follows the attempts to document the topography of ghettos and camps by their inmates through handmade plans and models. It asks how maps were used not only as evidence during war crimes trials but also as hiding places, escape routes, points of betrayal or help; to mourn the loss of relatives and to preserve their own memory.
On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Czech node of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-CZ), building on the MemoMap Prague project, presents two new interactive maps exploring the fates of the Jewish population during the period of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and beyond. The maps offer a spatial perspective on the processes of exclusion of Jews, the restriction of their everyday contacts with the surrounding society, as well as on contemporary sites of remembrance. Users can explore extensive datasets, including digitised archival documents, photographs, personal stories, commemorative and remembrance events, and specific locations. The development of the applications was also supported by the Foundation for Holocaust Victims (NFOH).
The post traces the identification of the anonymous drawings reproduced in Jägendorf’s Foundry.
Invitation to the closing lecture this year from the lecture series of the Jewish Museum in Prague and EHRI-CZ “New Views and Sources on the History of the Holocaust”.
Date: 11th December 2025, 6 pm
Place: OVK Auditorium, Maiselova 15, Prague 1, 3rd floor
Each member country of the EHRI-ERIC has a National Node – a consortium of research institutions, archives, museums, libraries and memory institutions with relevant expertise that advances the work of EHRI at the national and transnational level.
Date: November 24, 2025, 18:00–19:30
The webinar will demonstrate how EHRI Annotator works: the tool automatically identifies and links key entities (such as camps, ghettos, individuals, etc.) in multilingual documents related to the Holocaust. Participants will have the opportunity to test its features directly on transcripts of archival materials.
The opening ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 6 at 5:00 PM in the Mozarteum (Archdiocesan Museum Olomouc).
The conference will present the perspectives of researchers from around the world on how the narrative of the Shoah and its image in cultural memory have been transformed since the year 2000 – from new literary forms and the intergenerational transmission of trauma to the ethical questions raised by the depiction of the Holocaust in the age of digital media.
Date: 29 October 2025
More information: EHRI Webinar 29 Oct | “Voices – Letters from the Holocaust”
Date: 27 October 2025, 6:00 pm
Place: Auditorium OVK, Maiselova 15, Prague 1, 3rd floor
The lecture will be accompanied by the exhibition “Danish Jews in Terezín,” prepared by the Department of Scandinavian Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. The exhibition is open throughout October, Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 4 PM, at the Department for Education and Culture, Maiselova 15.
The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-ERIC) has officially joined on 26th September 2025 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as a Permanent International Partner (PIP). This was announced by Michaela Küchler, Secretary General of IHRA at the EHRI Workshop Multilateral Partner Strategic Cooperation Workshop in Vienna.
The board consists of six leading experts in the field of Jewish and Holocaust Studies: Ivana Cahová (Palacký University Olomouc), Michal Frankl (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe), Benjamin Frommer (Northwestern University), Hana Kubátová (Charles University), Jan Láníček (University of New South Wales, Sydney), and Kateřina Portmann (Technical University of Liberec).
Date: 30. 9. 2025, 7pm
Place: Maisel Synagogue, Maiselova 10, Prague 1
The experience of Prague’s Jewish community has long dominated the general history of the Holocaust in the Nazi Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia. The coherent narrative that emerges from that perspective often does not capture the particularly harsh persecution, violent repression, and greater isolation faced by the Jews of Moravia during the first years of the Nazi occupation. American historian Benjamin Frommer will explore the divergent paths of Moravia’s Jews and discuss possible causes for the differences from Bohemia and Prague.
Datum: 7th June 2025, 1:45 PM
Místo konání: PVA Expo Prague - Letňany, “Keplerův sál” (Kepler Hall)
From June 5 to 7, 2025, another year of the Czech Science Fair will take place in Letňany, Prague. It is the largest popular science event in the Czech Republic, held annually by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Date: 29th May 2025, 7 pm
Place: Auditorium OVK, Maiselova 15, Prague 1, 3rd floor
Questions of historical politics and cultures of remembrance are once again in the focus of public attention. After the phase of its globalization and institutionalization, Holocaust memory seems to be subject to a far-reaching process of change. The lecture tries to outline the current status and the current challenges in the European, “Western” and global context.
Datum: 3. června 2025, 15.00
Místo konání: Přednáškový sál v Národním archivu ČR, Archivní 2257/4, Praha 4
Na jaře 1945 se existence židovského ghetta v Terezíně a policejní věznice v Malé pevnosti blížila svému konci. Tři týdny před skončením války se Terezín stal cílovou stanicí pro evakuační transporty a pochody smrti z likvidovaných koncentračních a pracovních táborů na území říše. Setkání terezínských vězňů s nově příchozími znamenalo nejen kruté seznámení s realitou konečného řešení židovské otázky, ale také oddálení dlouho očekávané svobody. Tisíce vyčerpaných a nemocných vězňů zavlekly do Terezína skvrnitý tyfus, který se rychle rozšířil i mezi původními vězni. Tyfová epidemie vedla k pozastavení repatriací bývalých vězňů a Terezín se stal místem, kde probíhaly těžké boje s touto smrtelnou nákazou.
Date: 20–21 October 2025
Venue: Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Na Florenci 1420/3, Prague 1)
Submission deadline: 30 June 2025, submissions in Czech or English should be directed to sedlicka@mua.cas.cz. The event will be interpreted into both languages.
During the week of May 19-23, Mehrin is organizing a series of public discussions with Ann M. Altman Ph.D. entitled My Moravian Family Heritage. Ann Altman was born in 1947 in Bristol. Her mother, Edith Löwy, came from Znojmo from the Wotzilko brewing family. Her father, Štěpán Körner, was from Ostrava. Relatives on both sides lived in Třebíč, Brno, Žarošice, Velké Meziříčí and Vienna. While Ann’s parents fled Czechoslovakia, all four of her grandparents perished during the Holocaust. Nine discussions for the public and students about Dr. Ann Altman’s Jewish roots, the impact of the Holocaust on her family, and her own interesting life will be held in English.
Place: Small Mehrin, Vídeňská 14, Brno
The author of the drawings is a Chinese artist Han Jiang Xue, who is living permanently in the Czech Republic. The exhibited drawings were created as a basis for an educational comic book for the Museum of Kroměříž. The comic book traces the imprint of historical events of the 20th century in the life of František Färber, whose family belonged to the Kromeriz Jewish community. The drawings are based on historical sources, such as family photographs, correspondence, and objects gifted to the museum’s depository.
Place: MUNI, Komenského náměstí 2., Sir Roger Scruton Hall, No. 300, Brno
Date: 3rd April 2025, 7 pm
Place: Maisel Synagogue, Maiselova 10, Prague 1
Andrea Löw, a German historian, will present her book Deported. “Always with one foot in the grave” – Experiences of German Jews. Based on hundreds of letters, diaries and other testimonies, she reveals the fate of German Jews deported from the German Reich to occupied Eastern Europe. The book sheds light on their hopes, fears and daily struggle for survival. The author will be interviewed by the historian Michal Frankl. The event will be held in English.
Date: 25th March 2025, 6 pm
Place: OVK Auditorium, Maiselova 15, Prague 1, 3rd floor
Have you ever heard about the spa antisemitism? It is a phenomenon that could be encountered in Czech and Moravian spa cities from the end of the 19th century until the 1930s. It appeared mainly on postcards deliberately caricaturing Jewish guests. Antisemitic newspaper cartoons and small statues and sculptures depicting Jews in a stereotypical way were not left out. During her lecture, the art historian Eva Janáčová will explain the spa antisemitism and its specific examples.
Workers of the Documentation Action in Prague, 1946. From left: Zeev Schek, Edita Saxlová, Robert Weinberger, Harald Tressler (standing), Berta Gerzonová, Ruth Bondy, Jiří Lauscher. Photo courtesy of Rachel Shek.
Warsaw, 26 January 2025: On the eve of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) was inaugurated as a permanent European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) during a ceremony at the Polin Museum in Warsaw.
PHOTO: Maciek Jazwiecki, EHRI
Date: 28.-30. 10. 2024
Venue: Oskar Ziegler Villa, University of Lodz, Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 11
Schedule:
Monday 28/09/2023
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9.00-9.30: Welcome (Hotel lobby, Kościuszki 16)
Date: December 4-5, 2024
Venue: The National Archives, Archivní 2257/4, Prague 4
The workshop was part of the Czech EHRI node’s long-term effort to rethink priorities and develop new approaches to databases of historical actors. One of the main topics discussed was the introduction of the Arolsen Archives database, which is newly accessible from the National Archives. During the hands-on session, archive staff guided workshop participants through search options and the practical use of the digitized collections.
Date: 4-5 December 2024
Venue: National Archives, Prague, Czech Republic
What is the aim of the seminar?
The aim of the seminar is to evaluate the state of the art and critically reflect on the documentation of the names and fates of people who were persecuted during the Holocaust in the Czech lands and in Central and Eastern Europe. The meeting is part of a long-term effort of the Czech node of EHRI to discuss priorities and new approaches to databases of historical actors.
On October 20–21, an international workshop titled New Readings of Holocaust Testimony took place, organized by EHRI-CZ, GWZO, and the Malach Center for Visual History. The workshop focused on how new technologies are transforming historical research and explored the potential of public involvement in the creation and annotation of testimony corpora (citizen science) as a valuable source for historical inquiry. During the event, leading European experts in linguistic analysis and digital humanities met with professionals who work with Holocaust survivors’ testimonies in their daily research (historians, archivists).