By Jared Feldschreiber
A day-long symposium called "Older Jews and the Holocaust" took place at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in D.C. on Sept. 9, which “explored new research on the experiences of the elderly during and after the Holocaust.” The event featured a bevy of academicians, doctoral students, and early-career researchers, in large part put together by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference. The scholars hail from all over the world, including the U.K., Hungary, and Poland.
With stats compiled by the Claims Conference earlier this year, it was recorded that 245,000 Jewish survivors remain alive across more than 90 countries. Nearly half of them live in Israel, while 18 percent reside in Western Europe and 16 percent are in the United States. Since the early 1950s, the German government has paid more than $90 billion for individuals for suffering and loss as a result of Nazi persecution. The Claims Conference has administered many compensation programs, which continue to provide direct payments to survivors with over 300 social service agencies supplying services like home care, food, medicine, and transportation.
The many speakers at this symposium contributed to a forthcoming volume, Older Jews and the Holocaust, which is due to be released in 2025 and is published by Wayne State University Press. It is co-edited by some of the featured scholars at the event - among them, Christine Schmidt, Elizabeth Anthony, and Joanna Sliwa.
“All of the presenters talked about the difficulty in accessing information and how you really have to look deeply into the sources to get the information,” reminded Joanna Sliwa, an administrator of the Kagan Fellowship and the University Partnership. “My chapter in this volume and [the thrust of my] presentation is not about personal stories. My perspective is from institutional history, which is very different. It may not appeal to everyone because it may be considered drier... The papers that were discussed in the volume illuminate that relational and generational aspects were important.
"Older Jews were connected to other age groups, as we heard throughout the presentations,” she continued. “The papers also shed light on the notions of rehabilitation or vulnerable populations. They provide a foundation for establishing ‘age’ as a necessary category of analysis within Holocaust and Genocide Studies.”
In 2021, Sliwa authored Jewish Childhood in Krakow: A Microhistory of the Holocaust, the first book to tell the history of the city during the Second World War through the lens of Jewish children's experiences. Earlier this year, Sliwa also co-authored with Elizabeth White, The Counterfeit Countess, the story of Janina Schodolska, a Jewish woman who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by the Nazis. The Counterfeit Countess has been met to great acclaim.
The complete "Older Jews and the Holocaust" symposium was live-streamed on the USHMM's YouTube channel and remains online.
By Jared Feldschreiber
