Thread by @SocHistoryWar

#NVHOW20 Introducing Alice Tofts @AliceTofts2 @I_W_M @CDPConnect ‘An affective and reflective approach to studying Holocaust memory and photographs’ - the challenges implicit in managing emotional reactions to harrowing subjects #holocaustmemory #heuristicresearch #PhDlife

1 #NVHOW20 Few would deny that war and conflict is inherently upsetting and traumatic to experience and witness. But we rarely question what it means to study it? How do traumatic pasts impact those who investigate them and what does this mean for historical enquiry?

2 #NVHOW20 My research investigates the meaning and memories evoked and imbued by personal photographs of Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees whose stories have been collected and told by the Imperial war Museum (IWM).

3 #NVHOW20 Survivors donated/lent their photographs to the IWM in the ‘90s to be used in the Holocaust Galleries. I am now talking to survivors and their families about these photographs to investigate their role in creating meaning and memories of their past.

4 #NVHOW20 What did these photos mean to survivors and their families then and now? I am also exploring how IWM use personal photos to represent Jewish life and identity and tell the story of the Holocaust?

5 #NVHOW20 These photos are far from the stereotypical photos that are now synonymous with the Holocaust: concentration camps and ghettos. Instead they are scenes of domesticity, family and holidays before, during and after WWII.

6 #NVHOW20 My research has evoked a lot of emotions for me: anger, disbelief and sadness at the suffering of others but also hope and admiration for the human strength of the people I talk to. Talking to survivors and writing about loss and survival is emotionally draining.

7 #NVHOW20 Historical investigation requires empathy to engage with the past. Empathy, by its very definition is to understand and share the feelings of another. I struggled to retain objectivity while merging with the stories of persecution and suffering that I studied.

8 #NVHOW20 I feel it is impossible, and I would not even want to, achieve emotional distance from my research since this would limit my capacity for empathy. But I have realised how difficult it is to accept and work with these intense emotions when they are not spoken about.

9 #NVHOW20 To immerse yourself in a subject and not to reflect on it can be dangerous to the value of historical investigation and to your own mental wellbeing. The mental health of those dealing with traumatic material is largely overlooked in research planning.

10 #NVHOW20 My research demonstrates the political and emotional legacy of Holocaust memory as it continues to weigh heavily on future generations. Even in the ivory tower, or for me, in IWM’s dome, researchers are not immune to feeling drained by the intensity of the subject.

11 #NVHOW20 What impact does remembering and interpreting have on those conveying the past? Why and how can we do this when we could suffer in the meantime and how can museums and universities be open and explicit about the intensity of researching traumatic pasts?

12 #NVHOW20 People working in museums think about visitors and how they journey through the galleries, but I suggest that we think about the research journey and how we, as researchers, heuristically navigate our own subject and our involvement in the meaning making process.

13 #NVHOW20 Ask me questions at @AliceTofts2