The Holocaust
and Legacies of Race in
the Postcolonial World,
1945 to the Present
A research initiative of
the University of Sydney’s
Department of Hebrew, Biblical
and Jewish Studies, the
University of Southampton’s
Parkes Institute for the Study of
Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, &
the University of Cape Town’s
Kaplan Centre for Jewish
Studies.
date
10 - 12 April 2012
venue
mandelbaum house
385 Abercrombie Street
Darlington NSW
contact
Dr Avril alba
T +61 2 9351 5226
E [email protected]
Photograph: Emanuel Santos
Welcome to the beautiful harbour city of
Sydney and to the University of Sydney,
the oldest university in Australia.
The Holocaust and Legacies of Race
in the Postcolonial World, 1945 to the
Present is the latest research initiative
from a longstanding collaboration
between the Kaplan Centre for Jewish
Studies at the University of Cape Town
and the Parkes Institute for Jewish/
non-Jewish relations at the University
of Southampton. Beginning in 2000, the
research collaboration has included a
series of conferences and publications
(sponsored by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council, UK) focused on the
‘Port Jew’ project, an interdisciplinary
study of Jews in ports across time and
place. This initial research led to a formal
memorandum of understanding between
the two institutions and resulted in
further conferences and publications on
the theme of ‘place’, ‘the journey’ and
‘the archive and migration’.
More recently, the partnership has
expanded to include the University of
Sydney’s Department of Hebrew, Biblical
and Jewish Studies. The publication of
the edited collection The Memory of the
Holocaust in Australia (James Jordan,
Tom Lawson, eds.) marked the beginning
of this collaboration, which continues
with the staging of this conference
(supported by the World Universities
Network and the International Program
Development Fund) and plans for a
tripartite memorandum of understanding
and a further conference in Cape Town
to take place in January 2013.
The Holocaust and Legacies of Race will set an international
agenda for continued research into the Jewish migration
experience and its impact on the societies in which Jews found
themselves post ’45. Through a focus on the complex category
of ‘race’, the conference aims to shed new light on how the
experience of those who survived Nazi racial persecution
intersected with the already racialised societies to which they
had migrated. The conference papers explore in a comparative
and multi-disciplinary framework how societies, cultures and
political systems defined by legacies and on-going issues of
‘race’, racism and anti-racism responded to the Holocaust
after the Second World War, expanding and deepening
our understanding of both migration history and Holocaust
memory.
the Conference Organizing Committee
Avril Alba
Shirli Gilbert
9-10.30Representation and Commemoration
James Jordan
Chair: James Jordan
Steven CookeDeakin University
The 1961 Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration Exhibition,
Melbourne
Tony Kushner
Suzanne Rutland
Milton Shain
Katrina Schwarz
Independent curator
Yosl Bergner in Australia 1937-1948: Jews, Aborigines and
Diaspora Aesthetics
Avril AlbaUniversity of Sydney
A Question of Relevance? Redeveloping the Sydney Jewish
Museum
Given its focus, it is only fitting that the conference include
a celebration of the career of Professor Konrad Kwiet, Pratt
Professor at the University of Sydney and leading Australian
scholar of the Holocaust for the past forty years. The
conference will culminate in a celebratory event in honour of
Professor Kwiet on the Wednesday evening.
We take great pleasure in welcoming you to Sydney and are
certain that this conference will prove to be a challenging and
rewarding experience for all.
9.45
Welcome & 0PENING
Suzanne Rutland University of Sydney
Duncan Ivison Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, University of Sydney
10-11
Keynote Address:
Shirli GilbertUniversity of Southampton
The Holocaust and Legacies of Race(ism): A Research Agenda
12.30-2Conference Lunch
Sponsored by the University of Southampton
Suzanne RutlandUniversity of Sydney
Racial Criteria of Australia’s Post-War Migration Program,
1945-1952
1-2Lunch
2-3.30Responses to Race and the
Holocaust in Film and Television
5.30-6.30Optional meal at Mandelbaum House
7 – 8
Tour of the Sydney Jewish Museum
Sydney Jewish Museum
8A Celebration of the Career and
Contribution of Konrad Kwiet
Sydney Jewish Museum
Konrad Kwiet
Pratt Professor in Jewish and Holocaust Studies,
University of Sydney; and the Sydney Jewish Museum
Once upon a Time in Australia: Aborigines, Racists and Jews
3.30-4Coffee
4-5.30British Identity, Commonwealth and
Responses to the Holocaust
Aimee Bunting
Susanne UrbanInternational Tracing Service
The International Tracing Service (ITS) as an Allied
organization: Child Search as an Historical Challenge
Kitty MilletSan Francisco State University
Neither Race, nor Ethnicity: the Construction of ‘Subaltern
Jews’
James Jordan University of Southampton
Echoes of a Colonial Past in British Television’s Image of the
Holocaust
Chair: Tom Lawson
Milton Shain University of Cape Town
From Alien Outsider to White Insider: the ‘Jew’ in South Africa
from 1930 to 1948
Tony KushnerUniversity of Southampton
‘Illegal’ Immigrations, the Holocaust, and British Colonial
Discourse
3.30-5.30Break
Theories of Literature in a
Transnational and Postcolonial
Context
Malena ChinskiGeneral Sarmiento National University, Buenos Aires
The Plight of Yiddish Writers and Artists in the Early Post-War
Years: The Case of ‘The Refugees of ´52’
11.30-1
Chair: Konrad Kwiet
Richard FreedmanCape Town Holocaust Centre
and The South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation
The Legacy of Race: Holocaust Education in Post-apartheid
South Africa
11-12.30
David SluckiMonash University
Race Relations: The Holocaust and Television Comedy in
Comparative Perspective
11-11.30Coffee
Jewish Migration and Racialised
societies
Chair: Shirli Gilbert
10.30-11Coffee
Veronica Belling University of Cape Town
A Polish Refugee Among the Zulus: Faivl Zygielbaum’s Novel,
Di Uhamas
10 april - day i
2-3.30Contested Memories: The Holocaust
and Colonialism
Tom Lawson University of Winchester
The Holocaust and the Memory of Colonial Genocide in Britain
Chair: Karen Auerbach
Cape Town 2007 Photograph: James Jordan
9.15Registration
11 april - day 2
The Godolphin and Latymer
School, London
‘I Go and I Come Back’: Expatriates, ‘Englishmen’ and ‘Others’
encounter Bergen Belsen
Tom PlantUniversity of Southampton
‘Whites’ and Victims? Anglo-Jewish Youth and the Holocaust
Sarah ShawyerUniversity of Southampton
‘Holding the Baby.’ The Anglo-Jewish Press and the Armed
Resistance against the British in Mandatory Palestine between
1945 and 1948.
5.30-6.30 Optional visit to Newton Synagogue
6.30– 7.30 Conference Dinner
Sponsored by the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies,
University of Cape Town
7.30 -8.30 Keynote Address
Chair: Avril Alba
Chair: Milton Shain
Adam Brown Deakin University
Danielle Christmas University of Illinois, Chicago
Beyond the ‘Silent Scream’: Screening the Holocaust In
Racialised Urban America
Colin Tatz Australian National University
Genocide and the Holocaust: The Need for a Richter-Scale
12 april - day 3
9-10.30Alternative Empires: Polish-Jewish
Relations and the Soviet Colonial
Sphere
Chair: Tony Kushner
Leon PerlmanUniversity of Sydney
A Failed Rapprochement: Aspects of the Relations between
Poles and Jews in the post- war period in light of Aleksander
Ford’s Ulica Graniczna (Border Street) and Andrzej Wajda’s
Wielki Tydzień (Holy Week)
Karen Auerbach Monash University
Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust: Jewish Integration
and its Obstacles under Communism and in Contemporary
Poland
Andrew JakubowiczUniversity of Technology,
Sydney
‘A Childhood Not to be Forgotten:’ Polish Jewish Writers in
Australia and the Question of Polish Jewish Relations
10.30-11.00Coffee
11-12.00Comparing and Contrasting Racisms
Chair: Suzanne Rutland
Panyiotis DiamadisAustralian Institute for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Denial of the Shoah and Genocide in the Australian Context
Dan Puckett
Troy University, Alabama
The Holocaust and Jim Crow: Legacies of Racism
12 -1.00Concluding remarks and future
collaboration
Milton Shain and Shirli Gilbert
Registration
conference sponsors
We welcome the participation of active researchers, especially
postgraduate students and early-career researchers in the
conference proceedings. However, spaces are extremely
limited and a registration cost of $100 is required.
If you would like to attend the conference, please email
Avril Alba at [email protected].
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT FUND
Supporting initiatives in internationalization
Administered through the Office of the DVC International
ABN 15 211 513 464 CRICOS 00026A