Workshop of memory
The Workshop of Memory (WdE) is the oral history archive of the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg . Here biographical interviews are collected that touch on numerous aspects of German and Hamburg contemporary history from the beginning of the Weimar Republic to the present. One focus is on talks with those persecuted by the Nazi regime .
On the creation of the workshop of memory
The project “Hamburg CVs - Workshop of Remembrance” was founded in 1989/90 by the Hamburg citizenship in order to document the memories of those persecuted by the Nazi regime in Hamburg and to make them available to the scientifically interested public. Since it was founded, the collection has been continually expanding in thematic terms. The archiving of interviews from own and external research projects creates a diverse collection of the history of Hamburg and its regional and transnational external references from a biographical perspective.
Interviews and collection focuses
Life history interviews are conducted and collected in the workshop of remembrance . The course of the conversation is not based on a questionnaire, but rather the interviewees are asked to tell their entire life from childhood to the time of the interview. In total, the archive includes over 2000 interviews as well as photos, autobiographical records and other personal documents. The collection is continuously expanded.
The interviews in the WdE are grouped around three thematic priorities, which are based on the current research priorities of the Research Center for Contemporary History. The section "National Socialism and its 'Second' History" contains conversations in which the time of National Socialism and its consequences are brought to mind. These are u. a. Interviews on experiences of persecution and emigration with Sinti and Roma , relatives of euthanasia victims, political and Jewish victims of persecution and their descendants. This also includes interviews with non-persecuted people about their socialization during the Nazi era, in the Volkssturm or about their resistance, as well as interviews that address the bombing war in Hamburg and its significance for family history. The collection area "Hamburg since the 1950s" includes interviews on consumer culture, everyday women, youth experience, political new beginnings and also includes interviews with homosexuals, migrants, refugees and displaced persons. The collection area "recent and recent contemporary history" focuses on processes of change in the 1960s and 1970s and includes interviews on port work, the school movement, the sexual consumer culture and the German-Israeli youth exchange.
Usage and service
Most of the audio and video interviews are written and made accessible in such a way that they can be used as historical sources by students, scientists, journalists or exhibition organizers. In addition, the workshop of remembrance offers user advice, project support and assistance with questions about conducting interviews, archiving and indexing. The interviews must be viewed on site at the Research Center for Contemporary History. In many cases the audio or video version and thus the original source is also available. Use is only possible with advance notice.
literature
- Linde Apel, Klaus David, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum: From Hamburg to all over the world. Life stories of persecuted Jews from the workshop of memory. Dölling and Galitz, Munich / Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86218-012-7 .
- Linde Apel: sent to death. The deportations of Jews, Roma and Sinti from Hamburg 1940 to 1945. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940938-30-5 .
- Sybille Baumbach, Uwe Kaminsky, Alfons Kenkmann, Beate Meyer: Flashbacks. Biographical interviews with those persecuted by the Nazi regime in Hamburg. Results-Verlag, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-87916-042-2 .
- Christiane Berth: The Kindertransporte from National Socialist Germany to Great Britain. Institutional framework conditions and exile experiences of children and young people. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-937904-06-9 .
- Lina Nikou: Between image cultivation , moral obligation and memories: the visit program for Jewish former Hamburg citizens. Dölling and Galitz, Munich / Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86218-008-0 .