Niels Sei­del stu­died com­pu­ter sci­ence and mul­ti­me­dia at Ulm Uni­ver­sity. Cur­rently he is working as a re­se­arch as­so­ciate at the In­ter­na­tio­nal In­sti­tute at Dresden University of Technology. His re­se­arch spans hy­per­vi­deo, video- based learning en­viron­ments, hu­man com­pu­ter in­ter­ac­tion and de­sign pat­terns, with re­cent in­te­rests in edu­ca­tio­nal data mi­ning, data vi­sua­liza­tion and scrip­ted collaboration. Beside his technology-inspired work he is locally known as an author of a book about the Groß-Rosen sub-camp in Görlitz.

Project “Theresienstadt explained”

The project “Theresienstadt explained” aims to make the film “Theresienstadt: Eine Dokumentation aus dem Jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet” accessible for learning purposes. Therefore we try to identify people, places and the intrinsic propaganda in relation to its temporal appearances. As a result the film shall become augmented and therefore easier comprehensible for those who are not familiar with the depicted information and hidden meanings. For educational purposes we aim at three use cases: (1) supporting interactive live screenings by navigational aids and augmented data (e.g. at the memorial state or at the volunteer-led Youth Centre in Terezin); (2) individual self regulated learning in the web for an international audience; (3) scripted collaborative learning in small groups by analysing and discussing the film in a classroom. So far we obtained a high quality reproduction of the film from the German Federal Archive in Berlin that we rearranged according the original screenplay. At present 47 persons have been identified and almost described with biographical data or even short biographies. Currently we are developing a video learning environment that incorporates the film-related information along various navigational dimensions. Users are able to browse single scenes and identified persons. The perception of the film is aided by a table of contents (scenes), highlighted persons and a adjustable playback speed. In the next step we are going to contrast locations of the filming in 1944/45 with today’s views supplemented by a map.

The organisation and software development is resided at the International Institute Zittau at Dresden University of Technology. Currently the volunteers at the Terezin Youth Centre are cooperating in the content production. Finally members of the sociocultural centre Hillersche Villa in Zittau that once inspired the project participating and supporting “Theresienstadt explained” in many different ways.

Affiliation / Profession: University of Warsaw

Research interests: Holocaust representation in various media, film, photography, psychoanalysis, trauma studies

Current research project: “From Newsreel to Post-traumatic Film: Documentary and Artistic Films about the Holocaust” sponsored by Narodowe Centrum Nauki (National Centre for Science)

Latest publications: “On the Impossibility of Believing in the Documentary. Dariusz Jabłoński’s Photographer,” Kwartalnik Filmowy, special issue 2013, 130-31. “Reconstruction or Creation? The Liberation of a Concentration Camp in Andrzej Wajda’s Landscape After Battle,” Slovo vol. 25 no. 1 2013, 31-47. „Strategies of Recall: Post-1989 Polish Documentary and Artistic Films on the Holocaust,” in Erkundungen, Verhandlungen, Interventionen: Wie in Ostmitteleuropa nach 1989 an den Holocaust erinnert wird (Literatur, Kunst, Film, Alltag), Kadmos, Berlin 2010, .

Affiliation / Profession: Film historian, Dr. phil. Long-time research fellow of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts), co-founder and long-time member of both the CineGraph Babelsberg e.V. association and the Filmblatt magazine editorial team.Visiting scientist at the ZZF Potsdam, teaching assignments at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität Berlin and the Filmuniversität Babelsberg (substitute teacher). Co-curator of the 2012 Berlinale Retrospective “Die rote Traumfabrik“.

 Publications:Numerous reviews, essays, interviews and other publications on German film history, DEFA, film exile and topics of contemporary history, e.g. “Die rote Traumfabrik” for the eponymous Berlinale Retrospective (which received the International Willy Haas Award in Hamburg).

Director, screenwriter and actor Juraj Herz was born on September 4, 1934 in Kežmarok, Slovakia. In 1943, he and his parents were deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Fortunately, the whole family survived, Juraj was liberated in Sachsenhausen.

After the war he studied photography in Bratislava, later puppetry Faculty of Academy of Performing Arts directing and acting (DAMU) in Prague – in the same year as Jan Švankmajer with whom he also worked at the theatre Semafor. His debut as an actor happened in the film Každá koruna dobrá / Every Little Helps (1961) directed by Zbyněk Brynych. Brynych offered him a place as an assistant and an actor in the film Transport z ráje / Transport from Paradise (1962).
In 1965 Herz directed his short film Sběrné surovosti / Scrap Brutalities (1965) which is regarded as the most adequate film adaptation of Hrabal`s prose. This film originally was made for the anthology of films Perličky na dně / Pearls of the Deep, often called a manifesto for the Czechoslovak New Wave. In the following years he shot films in different genres: political horror (Spalovač mrtvol / The Cremator, 1968), a film which was very successful with the audiences  of 1969, psychological drama (Petrolejové lampy / Oil lamps, 1971 with Iva Janžurová), the post-invasion year, horror film (Upír z Feratu / The Vampire from Ferat, 1981 with Dagmar Veškrnová / Havlová whom Herz discovered for the movies) or a stylized Gothic story (Morgiana, 1972). World War II is treated in several of his works. His last work,  Habermannův mlýn/Habermann’s Fate (2010), approaches the topic of the expulsion of Sudeten Germans.
In 1987 Herz emigrated to West Germany. He shot modern fairytales (Žabí princ/The Frog Prince, 1991) and created documentary films and TV serials for various TV companies in Germany, Austria, France and USA. Since the early nineties he works both in the Czech Republic and abroad.  He has won numerous prestigious national and international awards, including The Chrystal Globe for his Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the festival in Karlovy Vary in 2009. 

Affiliation / Profession: Historian, researcher at the Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University

Research interests: Czech history in the 20th century, history of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, political trials in the 1950’s, Czech-German relations in the 20th century, remembrance culture, film with historical themes, swing music in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

Current research project:The Second Life of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. A Contribution to the Czech Remembrance Culture of the Second World War.

Latest publications:

Přes taneční kursy do ilegality. Tanec v protektorátu a jeho postihování. In: Dějiny a současnost, Vol. 35 (2013), Nr. 8, ISSN 0418-5129, p. 14–17

La campagne de propagande qui accompagna le procés politique de »Milada Horáková et Cie« (with Pavlína Kourová). In: Cahiers du CEFRES, n° 32. Individus sous contrôle. Prague 2012, CEFRES, ISBN 978-80-86311-26-5, p. 59–103

Odbojová činnost Julia Fučíka ve světle (nejen) nacistických dokumentů. In: Podhajský, F. A. (ed.): Julek Fučík, věčně živý! Host, Brno 2012, ISBN 978-80-7294-436-1, p. 43–61

„Škvorecký se nikdy nepřátelsky k lidově demokratickému zřízení neprojevil!“ Dramatické zákulisí vzniku jedné povídky z roku 1955. In: Čechurová, Jana – Andrš, Pavel – Velek, Luboš a kol.: Posláním historik. Pocta prof. Robertu Kvačkovi k 80. narozeninám. Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, Praha 2012, ISBN 978-80-7422-172-9, p. 537–559

„My conscience does not allow me to spread such lies“. Czech Exiles between February 1948 and August 1968. In: Wittlichová, Lucie (ed.): Messages home. Stories of Czechs who went abroad (Emigration and Exile 1848–1989). Dny české státnosti, Praha 2012, ISBN 978-80-904980-1-3, p. 203–215

Soňa Červená. How are things in our village? Being a stranger at home. In: Wittlichová, Lucie (ed.): Messages home. Stories of Czechs who went abroad (Emigration and Exile 1848–1989). Dny české státnosti, Praha 2012, ISBN 978-80-904980-1-3, p. 224–231

Der historische Film als Konstruktionsmittel des historischen Gedächtnisses. In: Erinnerungsorte des deutsch-tschechischen Zusammenlebens. Sammelband mit Beiträgen zur Konferenz der Arbeitsgruppe des Deutsch-Tschechischen Gesprächsforums „Erinnerungsort“ in Cheb 5. 6. 2010. Collegium Bohemicum, Praha 2011, ISBN 978-80-904421-2-2, p. 135–152

Protinacistický odboj na pražských veřejných prostranstvích po roce 1945. Příspěvek k historii české vzpomínkové kultury týkající se druhé světové války. In: Pejčoch, Ivo – Tomek, Prokop a kol.: Od svobody k nesvobodě 1945–1956. Ministerstvo obrany, Praha 2011, ISBN 978-80-7278-571-1, p. 94–103   

Nejhorší zrůdnosti české mládeže. Swingová hudba v protektorátu jako výraz protestu. In: Dějiny a současnost, Vol. 32 (2010), Nr. 6, ISSN 0418-5129, p. 30–33

České Vánoce od vzniku republiky do sametové revoluce (with Pavlína Kourová). Praha, Jaroslava Jiskrová–Máj a Dokořán 2010, 360 pages, ISBN 978-80-7363-252-6

Contact: 

koura.petr@seznam.cz

Affiliation / Profession: research assistant and lecturer, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Research interests: media history, film and photo history, cultural history

Current research project: PhD project: The Warsaw Ghetto in the films of 1942

Latest publications: Horstmann, Anja, Das Filmfragment „Ghetto“ – erzwungene Realität und vorgeformte Bilder, Beitrag zum Dossier Geheimsache Ghettofilm, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Bonn 2013. (Online und DVD-Zusatzmaterial)

Contact: ahorstma@uni-bielefeld.de

Affiliation / Profession: Film Historian, Film Journalist, Head of Research Haus des Dokumentarfilms Stuttgart

Research interests: Documentary, Newsreels, Digitalization, Cinema Buildings

Current research project: Non-Fiction Film in Germany 1945-2005 (Funded by German Research Fund DFG)

Latest publications:

Bilder aus der Vorhölle. Dokumentarische NS-Propaganda zum Alltag in den Ghettos, in: Ursula von Keitz, Thomas Weber (ed.): Mediale Transformationen des Holocausts, Avinus: Berlin 2013, S. 83-106.

„Geheimsache Ghettofilm: Vom ‚richtigen‘ Umgang mit historischen Filmmaterial“, auf

http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/nationalsozialismus/geheimsache-ghettofilm/153347/vom-richtigenumgang-mit-historischem-filmmaterial

Kay Hoffmann, Richard Kilborn, Werner Barg (Ed.): Spiel mit der Wirklichkeit. Zur Entwicklung doku-fiktionaler Formate in Film und Fernsehen, UVK-Konstanz 2012

„Realität und Dokumentarfilm“. In: Potthast, Barbara (Hrsg.): Das Spiel mit der Wahrheit –Fälschungen in Literatur, Film, Kunst, Kino, Berlin/Münster: Lit Verlag, 2012. S.65–77.

„Dokufiktion – Hybride Formen als Chance“. In: Matthias Leitner, Sebastian Sorg, Daniel Sponsel (Hg.): Der Dokumentarfilm ist tot, es lebe der Dokumentarfilm, Marburg: Schüren Verlag, 2014. S. 23-34.

„Dokumentarfilm und Digitalisierung: Ausbruch aus dem Gefängnis?“, auf: http://www.zhdk.ch/index.php?id=62227

Peter Zimmermann, Kay Hoffmann (ed.): Geschichte des dokumentarischen Films in Deutschland, Bd. 3 „Drittes Reich“ 1933-1945, Reclam: Stuttgart 2005.

Contact: kay.hoffmann@swr.de

Affiliation / Profession: Heisenberg Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the University of Regensburg. MA and PhD in Slavic Studies & History of Eastern Europe at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich.  Co-author of Hyperkino. Winter 2013/14: Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC. Natascha`s courses at Freie Universität, Berlin in 2014/15: Winter 2014: “Neue Wellen im osteuropäischen Kino der Nachkriegszeit” and “Ghetto Cultures”: http://www.fu-berlin.de/vv/en/lv/144579?sm=119983

Research interests: Cultural studies of East and Central Europe, esp. Czech and Russian, the history and theory of film, film and religion, tainted films, Holocaust film studies, film editions and the history of institutions dealing with film (archives and festivals)

Current research projects: anti-religious campaigns of the first two Soviet decades; the cultural and political contexts of the films shot in the ghetto of Theresienstadt 1942-45.

 Publications:
Ghettoisierte Sprachen: Theresienstadt als tschechisch-deutsche „Zwangs-gemeinschaft“, in: K. Smola u.a.:  Slavisch-jüdische Topographien und Räume, Wiesbaden 2014. (in print)
Ėjzenštejns Pathos: Verweltlichtes Wunder und ekstatische Dialektik, in: R. Nicolosi / T. Zimmermann (Ed.): Ethos und Pathos der Medien. Wirkungsästhetische Strategien zwischen Rhetorik und Politik im 20. Jahrhundert, Konstanz  2014 (in print)
Rhetorische Evidentia in der der frühen sowjetischen Filmchronik: Vskrytie moščej Sergija Radonežskogo(1919), in: S. Frank / S. Schahadat (Hg.): Evidenz und Zeugenschaft: Poetische und Mediale Strategien im Umgang mit dem Unzugänglichen, Festschrift für Renate Lachmann, Wien 2013, 491-532.
Filme annotieren: Das Sprengen des Rahmens der Einstellung oder Fußnoten zum Film und seiner Wissenschaft. In: B. Metz, S. Zubarik (Hg.): Den Rahmen sprengen. Anmerkungspraktiken in Literatur, Kunst und Film, Berlin 2013, 241-259.
The Exploited Recordings. German and Czech Voices in the Film Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet (1944-5), in: D. Zakharine/ N. Meise (Hg.): Electrified Voices: Medial, Socio-Historical and Cultural Aspects of Voice Transfer, Göttingen 2012, 249-279.
Russisches Licht. Von der Ikone zum frühen sowjetischen Kino, 2012 (529 pp).
http://www.boehlau-verlag.com/978-3-412-20456-3.html

 Contact: dr.nataschadrubek(@)gmail.com

Affiliation / Profession: Deputy director of the archival aquisition department, Yad Vashem archives, Israel

Research interests: German Jewish history, Holocaust related testimonies and films

Current research project: Testimonies as a historical source

Contact: anat.kutner@yadvashem.org.il