L’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem propose le mercredi 19 mars 2014 une conférence, en langue anglaise, sur les restitutions aux Juifs après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, et plus particulièrement sur les restitutions d’oeuvres d’art ou d’objets culturels.

Cette conférence est organisée par le “Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History“, le “Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry” et le “Da’at Hamakom: Center for the Study of Cultures of Place in the Modern Jewish World“.

Le comité scientifique est composé des Professeurs Dan Diner (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Uzi Rebhun (à la tête de l’institut Avraham Harman) et Yfaat Weiss (directeur du Centre Franz Rosenzweig Minerva).

Pour en savoir plus sur cette conférence, vous trouverez son programme ci-dessous ou en ligne sur la page internet de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem.

Cultural Restitution and National Reconstruction. The Jewish Case after WWII

The Nazi genocide against the Jews of Europe, in which murder was accompanied by plunder and theft, gave rise to the complex phenomenon of
restitution in general and cultural restitution in particular in the post-war era. Property rendered heirless by mass murder was dispersed throughout Europe. Its fate and future began to concern Jewish scholars from 1943 onward, together with growing awareness of the destruction of European Jewry. Its collection and redistribution after 1945 is a core issue of ongoing juridical and public debates as well as historical research.

Basing itself on archival findings and recent scholarly publications, the International Conference currently under preparation will explore the
various initiatives that were undertaken during the second half of the 1940s to rescue and repatriate these cultural artifacts to Jewish successor
organizations in England, the United States and Palestine/ Israundertaken during the second half of the 1940s to rescue and repatriate these cultural artifacts to Jewish successor organizations in England, the United States and Palestine/ Israel. By doing so, the conference will seek to contextualize the current public debates about ownership and its legitimacy that form the backdrop to relevant historical, legal, and semantic discourses.

9:00-9:15        Greetings
Reuven Amitai (Dean of the Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Uzi Rebhun (Head, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Yfaat Weiss (Director, Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Centre, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

9:15-10:45      Session I: Early Efforts
Chair: Stefan Litt (The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem)

Stefanie Mahrer (Rosenzweig Fellow, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) : “Much more than just another private collection” –  The Rescue of Jewish Books in the ’30s

Ben Barkow (The Wiener Library, London) : From Amsterdam to London: The Journey of the Wiener Library

11:15-12:30    Session II: Keynote Lecture
Chair:  Natan Sznaider (The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo)

Dov Schidorsky (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) : Books as Agents of Cultural Memory: Hannah Arendt’s Rescuing of Jewish Culture Goods after the Holocaust

14:00-16:15     Session III: American Interventions

Chair: Eli Lederhendler (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Dana Herman (The American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio) : Heirless Jewish Cultural Property: The American Government’s Policy After World War II

Elisabeth Gallas (Minerva Fellow, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) : Saving the Remnants of Jewish Culture – American and Jewish Restitution Initiatives in Post War Germany

Gish Amit (Mandel Leadership Institute, Jerusalem) : Common Past, Competing Futures: Redistributing Holocaust Victims’ Books

16:45-18:15    Session IV: The Aftermath
Chair: Guy Pessach (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Anna Kawalko (Research Student, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) : Between Breslau and Wroclaw: Disputing the “Saraval Collection” after World War II

Markus Kirchhoff  (Saxonian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Leipzig) : Questioning Provenances – Jewish Lost Books in Germany since the 1990s

18:15-18:30    Concluding Remarks
Dan Diner (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)