Kenton members were delighted to welcome Elise Bath on Sunday 28 September, for her talk on her work as International Tracing Service (ITS) Archive Manager to the Wiener Holocaust Library. She holds a M.Litt .which analyses gendered experiences in concentration camp memoirs, and an M.A. in Museum Studies both from Newcastle University.
She is also author of many articles on fertility in concentration camp memoirs, Nazi and post war persecution of the Roma and Sinit research ethics and trauma in historical research. The audience felt privileged to have heard her talk, especially has she had made a journey from Lancaster to be present to speak. Elise has an enormous capacity for dealing with the increase in people getting in touch especially after the Covid period and the growing workload created. To begin with she covered the history of the Wiener Library and how it came to being. This was due to Dr. Albert Wiener and his wife. Living in Germany at the time they saw the growth of Anti Semitism before the first World War and Nazism as a threat to society. Living in Amsterdam in the nineteenth thirties where the archive was set up they moved the collection to London.
The Archive material was used in evidence for Trials such as Nuremberg but also for research, collection, events and education purpose. Much of the material has been digitalised. The main International Tracing Service Headquarters is in Bad Arolsen in Germany. This contains around thirty million items, and twenty seven kilometres of shelving. Elise due attention to the meticulous entries in the Prisoner Camps but in others there was hardly any material available. There was evidence of documentation for the displaced people. It was difficult to find information about displaced children however. The Wiener Library works with a number of organisations both in this country and abroad. She informed her audience that there is now more documentation available which was not known until about five years ago. This includes information on the Leipzig Jewish Community for example.
More material is now being made available from other countries. Many of the audience had questions to pose and to try and obtain urther information about their relatives.
To round off the evening there were delicious refreshments and an opportunity to speak with Elise to have a greater understanding of the depth of her work.
Rachelle Goldberg