Workshop
Holocaust Survivors as Postwar Patients Across Europe: Physical and Psychological Rehabilitation after 1945

This workshop is financed by the COST-Action CA22159 - National, International and Transnational Histories of Healthcare, 1850-2000 (EuroHealthHist) and is co-organized by Dr. Victoria Martinez (Lund University, Sweden), Dr. Kata Bohus (UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø) and PD Dr. Friedeirke Kind-Kovács (HAIT).

Abstract: As the Second World War ended, the liberation of Nazi concentration and labor camps shocked not only the world but also the international medical community. For the medical profession, the early postwar period was thus a time of coping with and overcoming insufficient knowledge, facilities, and treatments. While historiography addresses what medical professionals treating survivors of Nazi persecution experienced, felt, and learned during this period, less is known about patients’ perspectives of the medical treatment they received. This one-day workshop seeks to bring together scholars from the field of history, cultural anthropology, as well as medical and psychological sciences to discuss current research and potential avenues of research related to survivors of Nazi persecution who experienced medical treatment after the Holocaust in various European countries and distinct contexts. We are tackling not just the question of physical recovery but also its connection to psychological rehabilitation. Here we are particularly interested in engaging with the survivors’ strategies of self-help and mutual help. We seek contributions from scholars of all career ages and various countries (especially from ITC countries) to offer case studies on Holocaust survivors in postwar Europe and their experiences of rehabilitation. As Sweden played a crucial role in the rehabilitation of thousands of Holocaust survivors, we propose to hold the workshop at the Swedish Holocaust Museum, where we envision engaging with the group of speakers as well as selected related materiality which will be available to view and listen to, while also reflecting on possibilities to use digital humanities tools to collect, visualize and exhibit the biographical paths and experiences of the studied subjects.