Présentation de la conférence par ses organisateurs Jonathan Zatlin (Université de Boston) et Christoph Kreutzmüller (Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz)

“Among the stereotypes about Jews circulating in Nazi Germany, perhaps the most prominent portrayed Jews not simply as rich, but as enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary Germans. It is one of the cruelest of ironies, however, that the Nazis were the real economic predators, robbing Europe’s Jews before murdering them. Within twelve short years, the Nazis managed to dispossess Germany’s Jews, taking away first their rights, then their property, and finally their lives.Despite the enormity of the crime, however, the dispossession of the Jews has only recently become the focus of scholarly attention. This conference brings together scholars from a variety of countries working on the financial history, social significance, and cultural meanings of the theft of assets owned by Jews. Panels range from the methods by which Jews were robbed, including the legal technologies and bureaucratic actors, to the kinds of assets stolen, from liquid assets to art, and the difficult process of restitution after 1945.”

Programme de la conférence(disponible sur le site H-Net)

Dimanche 9 Novembre 2014

17h : Mot de bienvenue : Consul General Rolf Schütte (German Consulate, Boston), Michael Zank (Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, BU), Hartmut Berghoff (German Historical Institute, Washington, DC)

Introduction: Jonathan Zatlin (Boston University)

Keynote Address: Christoph Kreutzmüller (Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz, Berlin) : Kristallnacht and the Destruction of Jewish Commercial Activity in Germany

Lundi 10 Novembre

8h30-9h30 : Economic Background
Président de séance : Jonathan Zatlin (Boston University)

Albrecht Ritschl (London School of Economics) : Financial Destruction. Confiscatory Taxation of Jewish Property and Income in Nazi Germany
Jonathan Wiesen (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale), A Jew-Free Marketplace: The Ideologies and Economics of Thievery

 

9h30-11h : The German-Jewish Commercial Presence
Président de séance : Eugene Sheppard (Brandeis University)

Dorothea Hauser (Warburg Archiv, Hamburg) : Too Involved and Too Engaged: The Warburg Bank’s Late Surrender
Stefanie Mahrer (Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) : Fighting the Thieves. Salman Schocken’s Strategies to Save His Possessions
Pamela Swett (McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario) : Salesmen, Salesmanship, and Dispossession in the Retail Context

11h30-13h : Bureaucracy and Dispossession – I
Président de séance : Hartmut Berghoff (German Historical Institute, Washington, DC)

Ingo Loose (Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München-Berlin) : The Reich Ministry of Economy and Its Role in the Institutional Competition of Plundering European Jews
Johannes Beermann (University of Bremen) : Taking Advantage: German Freight Forwarders and the Theft of Jewish Property, 1938-1945
Christine Schoenmakers (Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg) : The “Legal” Theft of Jewish Assets: A Closer Look at the Key Actors and Mechanisms of Expropriation between 1933 and 1945

14h30-16h : Bureaucracy and Dispossession –  II
Président de séance : Devin Pendas (Boston College)

Jonathan Zatlin (Boston University) : “Retiring” to Theresienstadt: The Heimeinkaufsverträge and the Dispossession of the Elderly
Stefan Hördler (German Historical Institute, Washington, DC) : Administered Plundering: Gefangenen-Eigentums-Verwaltungen in the Nazi Camp System
Alfred C. Mierzejewski (University of North Texas, Denton) : Taking from the Weak, Giving to the Strong

Mardi 11 Novembre

8h30-10h : The German “Model” in European Context
Président de séance : Jeffrey Diefendorf (University of New Hampshire, Durham)

Tal Bruttman (City of Grenoble/Memorial de la Shoah, Paris) : Identifying “Jewish Assets” in Vichy France
David Crowe (Elon University, Elon, North Carolina) : Plunder and Theft of Jewish Property in the General Government
Mirna Zakić (Ohio University, Athens) : Volksdeutsche, Aryanization, and the Holocaust: The Case of the Serbian Banat

10h30-12h: Art and Visual Representation
Présidente de séance : Susannah Heschel (Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire)

Michael Berkowitz (University of London) : Coming to Terms with a Lost Cohort:  Recalling and Restoring the Legacy of Jews and Photography
Charles Dellheim (Boston University) : Traffic in Significant Symbols: The Meaning of Looted Art
Jonathan Petropoulos (Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California) : Art Dealers in Nazi Germany: Trafficking in Looted Art Before and After 1945

13h30-15h: Restitution
Présidente de séance : Abigail Gilman (Boston University)

Eva Balz (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) : The Politics of Property in the Cold War. The Restitution of Jewish Assets in Berlin
Benno Nietzel (University of Bielefeld) : Restitution, Memory, and Denial: Assessing the Legacy of “Aryanization” in Postwar Germany
Lisa Silverman (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) : Repossession and Return: Madame d’Ora and the Restitution of Jewish Property in Austria after the Holocaust
Anna Rubin (Department of Financial Services, New York State) : The Nazi Regime and Legal Spoliation

15h-16h : Conclusions

Laura Meier-Ewert (La Commission d’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations intervenues du fait des législations antisémites en vigueur pendant l’Occupation, French Embassy, Berlin)
Christoph Kreutzmüller (Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz, Berlin)
Albrecht Ritschl (London School of Economics)
Jonathan Wiesen (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale)
Jonathan Zatlin (Boston University)