Establishing an International Network discussing the Appropriation of Jewish Property in Yugoslavia, 1940 to 1945

• Applicant: Dr. Sanela Schmid
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 299322255

The goal of this project is to establish an international scholarly network dedicated to the discussion of the appropriation of Jewish property in Yugoslavia, 1940 to 1945. A series of three conferences and the subsequent online publication of all conference papers will be the core of the scholarly network.Establishing such a network is valuable for two reasons:First, transnational cooperation helps taking inventory of both the disparate primary sources and the fragmented (local) secondary scholarship on the topic to create new perspectives for a broader, transnational scholarship. Connecting scholars and historical resources across the world is all the more important considering that our historical topic itself is transnational. Yugoslavia was divided in various occupation zones that each functioned by their own particular logic and whose occupiers and those collaborating with them implemented the appropriation of Jewish property in different ways. The perpetrators were from Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy and Yugoslavia, thus the illegal appropriation of Jewish property was often planned in and ultimately benefited the population of those countries. While the victims have since become multi-national, particularly after the break-up of Yugoslavia, their story has been told predominantly within a national or ethnic framework. This is why, secondly, this project is fostering the transnational discourse on remembrance. Through the history of memory, we hope to illuminate how people in socialist Yugoslavia and the nation states that emerged from it have perceived this sensitive topic.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Participating Persons: Dr. Christian Schölzel; Professor Dr. Michael Wildt