Session 3 with Frédéric Crahay, Veerle Vanden Daele and Hannes Vanwymelbeke: roundtable on the representation of trains and stations in Holocaust memory
Frédéric Crahay: ‘From a symbol of progress to a genocidal tool’
From the train as a vehicle towards a better life – a new start for migrant (Jewish) people from the East – to the train as a tool of deportation to forced labour, concentration camps and killing centres. Modern historians suggest that without the mass transportation enabled by the railways, the scale of the ‘Final Solution’ would not have been as huge. Statistics estimating the total number of victims are still based in part on the shipping records of the German railways. How did the train evolve from a modern means of transport to an efficient means of deportation and what impact did this have on the image of the train
after 1945?
Frédéric Crahay studied history at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and international politics at the University of Antwerp. Since 2010, he is working for the Auschwitz Foundation, of which he has been director since 2015.
Veerle Vanden Daelen: ‘Tracks and traces of deportation’
Train tracks can be powerfully symbolic. This presentation will explore how tracks and traces carry very different memories, including within Jewish memory. What is the impact of the tracks themselves and how can we address Holocaust memories when the tracks are no longer there? What kind of traces remain and how can they play a role in the memorialisation of deportations from Kazerne Dossin? How does the current Kazerne Dossin memorial, museum, and research centre work with the traces of so many lost lives?
Veerle Vanden Daelen is deputy general director and director of Collections & Research at Kazerne Dossin, Memorial, Museum and Research Centre on the Holocaust and Human Rights. She holds a PhD in history from the University of Antwerp. Her dissertation examined the return and reconstruction of Jewish life in Antwerp after the Second World War (1944-1960). She has held fellowships at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Michigan) and the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Pennsylvania). Besides numerous articles, she has authored two books, Vrouwbeelden in het Vlaams Blok (Ghent, 2002) and Laten we hun lied verder zingen. De heropbouw van de joodse gemeenschap in Antwerpen na de Tweede Wereldoorlog (1944-1960) (Amsterdam, 2008). Veerle coordinates the work package Identification and Investigation for the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) and is a member of the Belgian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). She is also affiliated to the University of Antwerp, where she has taught courses on migration history, Jewish history, and other topics
Hannes Vanwymelbeke: ‘The train of 1000’
The Train of 1000 is a joint initiative of the War Heritage Institute and the Auschwitz Foundation to commemorate the victory of democracy over Nazi Germany. The idea was born in 2008 on the occasion of the international commemoration of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp. Each edition invites 1,000 young people from all over Europe to visit the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Poland, with the aim of raising their awareness of the atrocities committed during the Second World War and to talk to them, of course, about the Holocaust. The next edition of the Train of 1000 is planned for
2023
Hannes Vanwymelbeke studied journalism and is currently head of the Memory Service of the War Heritage Institute.
On 26 April 2022, EUROPALIA organised the conference ‘Trains and the Holocaust’ in collaboration with the Auschwitz Foundation and Kazerne Dossin. Open to a broad public, the conference examine the role and image of the train, which evolved from a symbol of modernity to an instrument of genocide.
In the framework of EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS, from 14 October 2021 until 15 May 2022: https://europalia.eu/en/trains-and-tracks/programme
#europaliatrainsandtracks #europaliaartsfestival
Step on board for EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS, from 14 October 2021 to 15 May 2022! This year, EUROPALIA dedicates an edition to the train, an invention that shaped society and appears to be playing a leading role again today. EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS presents a multidisciplinary programme of over 70 projects—mostly new creations and residencies—spread across artistic institutions but also, and especially, to be discovered in stations and aboard trains.
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