Livestream of the online exhibition launch, Friday, June 18, 2021, 10 a.m.

Crimes Uncovered. The First Generation of Holocaust Researchers

Between 1939 and 1945, the Germans murdered six million Jews. The Holocaust was aimed at the destruction of Jewish life and Jewish culture. The perpetrators sought to erase all traces of the crime.

© Nationaal Archief/Collection Spaarnestad Photo
De Jong organizing and cataloguing documents at the Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam, 1950.

Jewish citizens joined in their efforts to counteract this "final solution". From the onset of the attrocities, they documented the events in order to bring to light the dimensions of mass murder. They collected facts and secured traces. They founded archives and research groups. They wanted to remember the murdered, uncover the crimes of the Holocaust, bring the perpetrators to justice, and at the same time make another genocide impossible.

These women and men denied the perpetrators an ultimate triumph: the mllion fold murder defied oblivion. Instead, it bore consequences: books, memorials, research institutes, court cases and last but not least the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. These were the formidable results of their commitment. Their efforts shaped the foundation of our current knowledge f the Holocaust.

The exhibition commemorates the life and work of twenty of these pioneers of early Holocaust research.

Imprint

Curators of the exhibition: Lea Feibusch, Nicole Henzler, Nora Huberty, Till Stumpf, Dr. Barbara Warnock, Romina Wiegemann

Concept and academic supervision: Dr. Hans-Christian Jasch, Prof. Dr. Stephan Lehnstaedt

Design: mono.studio

Image rights: Maximilian Jung

Translation (unless otherwise stated): Energy Translations

Corrections: Kathrin Hanzen, Nicole Warmbold

Website design: Lime Flavour, Eike Stegen, Franziska Thole