Anecdotes and Arguments

Anecdotes and Arguments: How the colour of individual life allows for broader interpretations of the Holocaust

Is the Holocaust history, or is it memory? We record the witnesses, and we record the events. For decades though, the testimony of witnesses was regarded skeptically by scholars who sought larger explanations. In this talk, Timothy Snyder will demonstrate how the details of individual experience open avenues for broader argument about the causes of the mass murder of Europe’s Jews.

Framing the Holocaust as both a historical event and a field of remembrance, this event reflects on how narratives are shaped, preserved, and interpreted across generations. It underscores the importance of testimonies and archival collections not only as evidence, but as a vital lens through which broader historical meanings emerge. The talk is followed by a discussion with Stephen Naron and the audience.

“We Lived … In the Ninth District” is a video installation currently on display at Showroom Berggasse 19 and complements special exhibition “Documents of Injustice: The Case of Freud”. Selected testimonies from Viennese Holocaust survivors provide harrowing insights into our history and demonstrate how the past continues to have an impact on the present.

Timothy Snyder holds the inaugural Temerty Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. He is also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the head of the academic advisory council of Ukrainian History Global Initiative.
A scholar of the history of Central Europe, Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, Snyder speaks five and reads ten European languages. He is the author or editor of twenty books published in forty languages. Snyder writes for the press on Ukraine, the U.S, authoritarianism, digital politics, health, and education. He has also appeared in documentaries, on television, and as an expert witness before several parliaments. He has received state orders and decorations as well as honorary doctorates. His work has inspired demonstrations, sculpture, posters, punk rock, rap, film, theater, and an opera.

Stephen Naron is the director of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Stephen Naron has worked as an archivist/librarian since 2003, when he received his MSIS from the University of Texas, Austin. Stephen pursued a Magister in Jewish studies/history at the Freie Universitaet Berlin and the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, TU. Stephen is currently a PhD student at Brandeis University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. With the video installation “We Lived … In the Ninth District”, Stephen Naron, historian Julie Dawson, and filmmaker Ambrus Hernádi have created an impressive film document from the extensive resources of the Fortunoff Archive at Yale.