#holocauststudies

[skabunny]

#holocauststudies end with #donuts and a long #discussion about #forgiveness.

[archaiologie-blog]

A tourist or not a tourist?

If you’re going on a trip like MRH, do you still consider yourself a tourist? or is there another word that can capture the excitement of being in foreign cities, engaging in those carefree wild tourist-y activities yet also being steeped in the most utterly heartbreaking things every day? What a weird time it was, going drinking with friends at night while also crying  on each others’ shoulders during the day.

Perhaps you consider yourself a student instead. Or someone very good at compartmentalizing.

[memoriesmotifs-blog]

Can big data prevent genocide?

Through Twitter, we can now all be at conferences around the world. Live tweeting and hashtags give us a way into conferences we can't attend through key points, provocative questions, and shared notes. 

So, today I followed Jennifer Serventi's tweets from the Big Humanities Data 2014 Workshop and fell down a rabbit hole thinking about Big Data & Holocaust research. It started here:

Must think more about the new Early Warning Project soon to launched by the US Holocaust Mem'l Museum. #bighumanities http://t.co/j7XMyyvK48

— Jennifer Serventi (@JenServenti)

October 27, 2014

Starting the Big Humanities Data Workshop w. Michael Haley Goldman & Michael Levy of the US Holocaust Mem'l Museum. http://t.co/aLfw0olQNT

— Jennifer Serventi (@JenServenti)

October 27, 2014

Michael Levy and Michael Haley Goldman of the USHMM posit that the digitization of their vast collection of documents about the Holocaust leads to "greater quantities of historical data about this history" which can help push Holocaust studies "beyond traditional approaches to scholarship and education." [Quotes from abstract, Big Humanities Data 2014 Workshop] 

These digitized materials can help scholars ask new questions and find new ways of understanding the Holocaust. In other words, Big Data and the tools developed to analyze big data have the potential for shifting what we know about the Holocaust, how we understand the elements that led to the Holocaust, and how we teach about both.

The museum has been asking another provocative question about Big Data for some time: can it help us prevent other genocides? Can vast amounts of data and the technological tools to find patterns in historical materials create an Early Warning System that could identify trouble areas and raise public awareness? Since 2011, the Museum's Center for the Prevention of Genocide has convened seminars and workshops to start asking these questions and building this kind of system. It seems the system is almost ready to launch.

A system like this has the potential to direct international attention - if not political will - to areas where violence might happen and root the uncertainty of intervention in scholarship. Historians and social scientists have long been arguing for this kind of work and the need for early intervention to prevent mass atrocity, but the big data approach seems to offer a more scientific response. Through this model, genocide activists can say, "we have data."

Of course, there are ethical concerns about turning Holocaust documents into data as they raise the specter of how data enabled deportations and round ups during the Holocaust.* Even though the questions here are moral and aspirational, how can we understand the relationship between data and the Holocaust as an innocent one? Does the history of the Holocaust and technology render this kind of work too problematic or are we allowed to search out new ways to use computation in aiding the work of Holocaust and Genocide scholars?

Following Serventi's tweets and the #bighumanities hashtag as a way to expand my knowledge about the field of Holocaust research already complicates the relationship between technology, Holocaust research, & knowledge sharing. But, like the problematic use of large scale data, twitter can also help raise awareness, spread knowledge, and shift political will - which can also help prevent atrocity and save lives.

From afar, I can only peek in, which allows me to raise questions and think about the possibilities, but go no further. I look forward to learning more about the museum's Early Prevention System, the digitization of museum collections, and seeing where the intersection of big data and Holocaust history can lead. At the same time, I will continue to grapple with the ethical implications of using technology to render Holocaust research into data and new forms of knowledge.

*In raising the ethical questions of Holocaust studies and big data, I'm thinking of Todd Presner's work, "The Ethics of the Algorithm: The Ethics of the Algorithm: Close and Distant Listening to the Shoah Close and Distant Listening to the Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive Foundation Visual History Archive" presented at the UCLA conference, “History Unlimited: Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture,” April 2012.

[ychs13mlkd]

“Chaim” - The Garden of Life

One of the first things that stood out to me on the Holocaust studies trip was the Garden in the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. This wasn't a typical “garden” like one would think, with beautiful flowers and plants and maybe a small pond, but it consisted of 18 boulders with a single tree sprouting from the center of each boulder. It was one of the most beautiful and interesting things I had seen, but it wasn't until our tour guide told us the symbolism of the garden that it really struck me. The number 18 is Hebrew is “Chai” which is related to “Chaim” which means life. Eighteen is a very prominent number in the Jewish culture because of this. So the 18 boulders represent life and the tree growing from the center of each one represents the idea that life can grow from even the toughest of circumstances. This is what makes this garden stand out from others. It represents a culture's constant struggle for life and how they are still able to overcome it.

A little later after we toured the museum, we had the privilege of hearing a survivor speak. Her name is Helen Studley and she has written a book about her time in Auschwitz called “The Winter's Journey of My Youth.” She told us her story and how she was able to overcome the hardships she faced in the camp by playing music in her head and letting the music take her somewhere far from the camps. After she left the camps, she came to New York and got married and began really living. She went to college, had many different jobs, she opened a travel agency and lived in France, had children, and even today she is back in school and still pursuing things that she wants to do. She told us that she isn't bitter and that she believes in the goodness in people. This was what was so amazing and inspiring to me. It all came back to the garden for me. Even though she faced these horrible and tough things in her life, she didn't let it hold her back from living. She made a beautiful and full life. She is the beautiful tree growing from the boulder that represents life and joy, growth and birth.

In this post, I've included a picture of the garden, a sketch that I did in my journal of one of the boulders in the garden, and a picture of me and Helen, the survivor we met.  

- Laurel -