The Role of Auschwitz in Holocaust Narratives – May 5, 2025, Toronto

The Role of Auschwitz in Holocaust Narratives Conference 2025 will bring together leading international scholars to critically examine how Auschwitz has shaped survivor narratives and influenced collective memory. Marking the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, the conference coincides with the Toronto exhibition of Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Through four interdisciplinary panels, the conference will explore a range of themes, from the spatial and material realities of Auschwitz to the linguistic, gendered and cultural frameworks that shape survivor testimonies. Scholars from institutions in North America and Europe will share their latest research, shedding light on how Auschwitz has been remembered, represented and narrated across different survivor communities and historical contexts. 

Rooted in two decades of the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program, this international gathering seeks to deepen our understanding of the camp’s enduring significance and the critical importance of survivor narratives in shaping how we remember Auschwitz and, more broadly, the Holocaust.

Monday, May 5, 2025

9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Opening remarks from Naomi Azrieli, O.C., DPhil, Chair and CEO, Azrieli Foundation

Panel 1: Auschwitz as a Physical Space

9:15 AM - 10:45 AM

Chair: Carson Phillips, Gratz College; Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program, Azrieli Foundation
Panelists:

• Emily Roche (Maynooth University, Ireland)  
  The Structure of Survival: Experiences of Builders in Auschwitz 
  
• Helga Thorson (University of Victoria, Canada)  
  Proximity and Perspective: The Prisoner Revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau
  
• Svetlana Ushakova (USC Shoah Foundation, USA) 
  Geographic Perception of Auschwitz in Survivors Memoirs and Testimonies  
  

10:45 AM - 11:15 AM
Coffee Break

Panel 2: Auschwitz as Gendered Space

11:15 AM - 12:45 PM

Chair: Sara Horowitz, Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, York University
Panelists:

• Charlotte Gibbs (USC Shoah Foundation, USA)  
  Women Guards, Non-Human Animals and Memoirs of Female Violence in Auschwitz
  
• Barnabas Balint (Magdalen College, University of Oxford, UK)
  Comparing the Representation of Auschwitz in Memoirs and Interviews from Hungarian Holocaust Survivors  
  
• Hannah Wilson (Nottingham Trent University, UK)
  The Materiality of Auschwitz in the Memoirs of Felix Opatowski and Nate Leipciger: A Forensic Re-Reading

12:45 PM - 1:45 PM
Lunch

Panel 3: Auschwitz as Linguistic Space

1:45 PM - 3:15 PM

Chair: Gavin Wiens, University of Toronto; Advisor to the ROM’s Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away. , Toronto exhibit
Panelists: 

• Lia Deromedi (Butte College, USA)  
  Here There is No Why: Auschwitz as Metonym for the Holocaust in Survivors’ Literary Reckoning with Memory
  
• Laura Mañero (Universitat de Valencia, Spain)
  Gendered Otherness: Linguistic Aggression Against Women in Auschwitz-Birkenau 
  
• Michael Polgar (Penn State, USA) 
  Hungarian Survivor Memoirs: Devastation and Rediscovery

3:15 PM - 3:45 PM
Coffee Break

Panel 4: Auschwitz as Focused Memory Narratives

3:45 PM - 5:15 PM

Chair: Debórah Dwork, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, The CUNY Graduate Center 
Panelists: 

• Alicja Jarkowska (Jagiellonian University, Poland)
  Narratives of Auschwitz from Krakow’s Jews
  
• Heléna Huhák (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary)
  Diary Writers and Survivors: Images of Auschwitz in the Hungarian Jewish Testimonies
  
• Lara Raabe (Goethe University, Germany)
  The “Gypsy Family Camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau in Survivors’ Memories

5:15 PM
Closing Remarks