20 January 1942. What Remains?
The Meeting at Wannsee in the Past and Present
International and interdisciplinary symposium, Berlin, 19-21 January 2022
“Hideous crimes took place in many other buildings housing Gestapo offices or similar institutions of Hitler’s Reich, but no house has acquired a symbolic and quasi-exterritorial character as this one, in which the extermination of European Jewry was organised and prepared at the conference on 20 January 1942.”
Eighty years after the meeting on 20 January 1942, the symposium jointly organised by the Alfred Landecker Foundation and the House of the Wannsee Conference addresses the relevance of the Wannsee Conference for the history and contemporary awareness of the Holocaust. Together with international experts, we examine the significance of the historical site both then and now, and discuss the role played by the Wannsee Conference in culture, education and outreach.
Wednesday, 19 January 2022: dbb forum berlin / hybrid
From 10:00 am
| Registration and snacks (from 12 noon) |
1:00 pm | Opening Deborah Hartmann, Director of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Site (GHWK) Dr Andreas Eberhardt, Executive Director of the Alfred Landecker Foundation
Greetings Claudia Roth, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Dr Klaus Lederer, Senator for Culture and Europe |
1:30 pm | Opening presentation
Prof. Dr Dr hc Dan Diner, Alfred Landecker Foundation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The "Wannsee Conference": Meaning and Memory |
2:15 pm | Commentary / Reflection
Prof. Dr Sybille Steinbacher, Fritz Bauer Institute, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main: Bureaucratic genocide, genocidal violence and the urge to compare
Prof. Dr Norbert Frei, Friedrich Schiller University Jena: The site of the Wannsee Conference in German historiography and the public sphere |
3:00 pm | Discussion Moderated by Deborah Hartmann, GHWK |
3:30 pm | Break |
4:00 pm | Reflection rooms in small groups |
5:30 pm | Panel 1: Wannsee as a memorial site Moderated by Steffen Jost, Alfred Landecker Foundation
Discussion by Deidre Berger and Cilly Kugelmann, Advisory Council GHWK: On the significance of a date and place: Jewish memory and the Wannsee Conference
Prof. Dr Astrid Messerschmidt, University of Wuppertal: Between rejection of remembrance and responsibility. Historical relations in a post-national socialist society |
6:30 pm | End |
Thursday, 20 January 2022: dbb forum berlin and Akademie der Künste / hybrid
10:00 am | Dr Matthias Hass, Deputy Director of the GHWK Welcome and introduction |
10:15 am | Panel 2: Traces of the Wannsee Conference in literature and visual culture Moderated and introduced by Dr Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Symbolic site and icon - the cultural afterlife of the Wannsee Conference
Reading from “Die Verteidigung” (The Defence)
Yael Bartana and Shelley Harten: Excerpts from the video installation "Malka Germania"
Followed by discussion |
11:30 am | Reflection rooms in small groups |
12:30 pm | Joint lunch at the dbb Forum |
1:30 pm | Panel 3: The Wannsee Conference in education and outreach Moderated by Dr Noa Mkayton, Director of the International Education and Training Department, Yad Vashem
Tali Nates, Director of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre: Education and outreach on the Wannsee Conference, Holocaust and genocide in Africa
Aya Zarfati and Deborah Hartmann, GHWK: 15 men - 90 minutes – a protocol: Relevance and critical reflection of the Wannsee meeting in outreach |
3:00 pm | Break |
3:30 pm | Reports from the reflection rooms Moderated by Deborah Hartmann, GHWK |
4:30 pm | Camouflaging antisemitism: From Wannsee (1942) to London (2000) to Charlottesville (2017) – A historian’s personal perspective Prof. Dr Deborah E. Lipstadt |
5:30 pm | Discussion Moderated by Dr Matthias Hass, GHWK |
6:00 pm | Joint evening meal at the dbb forum berlin |
8:00 pm | Film screening at the Akademie der Künste The Wannsee Conference. Directed by: Matti Geschonneck. Production: Constantin Film / ZDF, 2022 Greeting: Prof. Jeanine Meerapfel, President of the Akademie der Künste Followed by: Audience discussion with Matti Geschonneck (Director), Martin Moszkowicz (chairman of the executive board, Constantin Film) and Deborah Hartmann, GHWK. Moderated by Shelly Kupferberg |
Friday, 21 January 2022: Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference / digital only
10:00 am | Monika Sommerer, Head of the Joseph Wulf Library, GHWK Welcome and introduction |
10:15 am | Dr Christoph Kreutzmüller, GHWK 30 years reflected in 3 permanent exhibitions Moderation and discussion: Prof. Dr Peter Klein, Touro College Berlin |
11:30 am | Break |
11:45 am | Panel: Memorial education and digitisation Moderated by Dr Jakob Müller, GHWK
Dinesh Kumari Chenchanna, ZDF, Head of the New Digital Partnerships Unit in the History and Science Department: “Wannsee Conference” virtual reality application
Flavia Citrigno and Dr Christoph Kreutzmüller, GHWK / Antoni Zakrzewski, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS): Questioning Eichmann’s numbers – in a European digital Project
Dr Ruth Preusse, GHWK: Interactive online exhibition “Remembering Injustice” |
12:45 pm | Break-out rooms for the three digital projects |
1:15 pm | Break |
2:00 pm | Opening of the garden exhibition “20 January 1942. And today?” Moderation and Introduction: Dr Ruth Preusse, GHWK
Followed by a discussion with the participating artists and curators Sharon Adler, Mathis Eckelmann, Leon Kahane, Shlomit Lehavi, Til Mette |
3:00 pm | Closing words Deborah Hartmann, GHWK Dr Andreas Eberhardt, Alfred Landecker Foundation |
3:30 pm | End of the conference |
Registration, Event Locations, Stream, Pandemic Protection
Registration:
The symposium will take place on 19/20 January 2022 at the dbb forum berlin. The film screening on 20 January 2022 will be at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. The two programme days will also be streamed - so anyone interested can also participate from home. Participation on site and streaming is free of charge. On 21 January 2022, the conference will continue as a stream-only event from the House of the Wannsee Conference, without any audience on-site.
Event Locations:
- dbb forum berlin, Friedrichstraße 169, 10117 Berlin
- Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
Stream:
All parts of the programme are also available as a stream, in German and English. Active participation is possible via a Zoom webinar. The symposium will be available on our Youtube channel in German and English for at least one week afterwards.
Pandemic Protection:
If the symposium can take place on site as planned (dbb forum berlin, Akademie der Künste, 19/20 January), all participants will be vaccinated or recovered and additionally tested and wear FFP2 masks. In addition, we will publish our hygiene concept here on 7 January, which we are constantly adapting to the circumstances.