British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
FULLY BOOKED
Kristallnacht and its International Aftermath
Monday, 8 December 2008
The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH
A workshop convened by Professor Edward Timms, OBE, FBA, Research Professor at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies, University of Sussex and Professor Christian Wiese, Professor of Jewish History at the University of Sussex, Director of the Centre for German-Jewish Studies and co-director of the Centre for Modern European Cultural History.
Please note our registration and seating policy for this event:
Attendance is free, but registration is required for this workshop, please complete our online booking form.
Please also note that lunch will not be provided, but plenty of time will be allowed for attendees to obtain lunch in the surrounding area.
Kristallnacht and its International Aftermath Workshop: 10.30am – 7.30pm
For political historians, the anti-Jewish riots of Kristallnacht (November 1938) raise questions about the international response to violence that remain topical to this day. The looting of shops, burning of synagogues and killing of dozens of innocent civilians in Germany was on the front pages of daily newspapers all over the world. So why was the international response to the outrage, now seen as precursor to genocide, so half-hearted and ineffectual? And why was so little done to help the victims and refugees? These questions still haunt the international community, as it proves equally helpless to contain genocidal violence in Srebrenica, Rwanda and Dafur.
The issues raised by Kristallnacht will be reassessed by leading international historians attending a British Academy workshop on Monday 8 December that will focus on both causes and reactions. Were the anti-Jewish riots spontaneous or carefully orchestrated? How can we explain the silence the Christian Churches? How did the pogroms affect Zionist policies in Palestine? Why were British responses towards the desperate plight of the refugees so contradictory? And given that Kristallnacht provoked such critical reactions in the United States, why did American policy towards Nazi Germany remain so ambivalent?
Speakers will include Prof. Raphael Gross (Frankfurt) on ‘Eye-witness Testimonies at the Wiener Library’, Prof. Susannah Heschel (Dartmouth College) and Prof. Doris Bergen (Toronto) on ‘The German Churches’ Response to Kristallnacht’, Prof. Moshe Zimmermann (Jerusalem) on ‘The Impact on the Palestinian Population’ and Prof. Gulie Ne’eman Arad (Beer Sheva) on ‘America’s Responses to Kristallnacht’. A concluding panel discussion, chaired by Prof. Peter Pulzer (Oxford), will focus on the continuities between past and present under the heading ‘International Responses to Ethnic Conflict, 1938-2008’.