CFP: "Forgotten voices. Holocaust Memories Through the Perspective of Minorities" International Conference, vol. 1

The Call For Papers for presentations for thematic panels IS NOW OPEN. 

In order to submit a proposal please use Proposal submission and Registration form.  

Deadline for submission is 30 September 2025. 

Participating in the Forgotten Voices Conference, vol. 1 is free of charge. To avoid last-minute cancellations, please consider your in-person availability for the Forgotten Voices Conference, vol. 1, which will be held in Kraków on 20–21 March 2026 before submitting a proposal. In the event that circumstances prevent you from attending the conference in Kraków, we encourage you to join our virtual Forgotten Voices Conference, vol. 2. 

Q&A and discussion sessions will be held after each panel. For Forgotten Voices Conference we wish to encourage a healthy discussion culture, based on respect for others. The activities planned are meant to be safe spaces and aggressive behaviour will not be tolerated. 

We encourage all Participants to meaningfully interact and engage in Q&A sessions. 

The Forgotten Voices Conference has an open Call For Papers and encourages the participation of academics not associated with the project, according to the principles of open science, inclusivity, and transparency.  

Engagement of academics from various backgrounds, disciplines, countries, and cultures is encouraged and welcomed. 

Student engagement, transgenerational inclusivity, and cross-disciplinary exchange of knowledge are vital in the process of establishing an open, comprehensive, diverse, and innovative research environment and adheres to the idea of multidimensional approach to the subject of the Holocaust, which is the aim of the CEMORY project. 

Scholars are welcome to submit their proposals for presentations via the Proposal Submission and Registration form. Proposals must be consistent with the scientific theme of the conference and fit one of its thematic panels. Each presenter is allowed 20 minutes for their presentation.   

All presentation proposals are subject to review before acceptance. Reviews will be carried without bias and in accordance with the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, stating that: 

“Issues such as race, gender, faith, origin, nationality, and the political beliefs of the Authors must not, in any way, affect the result of the review. Texts sent for publication are evaluated first and foremost in terms of their factual knowledge as well as formal and technical components. Decisions of the Reviewers must be based upon scientific values.”  

In order to ensure high academic quality of the Forgotten Voices Conference, the following guidelines will be followed: The IHRA Guidelines for Identifying Relevant Documentation for Holocaust Research, Education and Remembrance (2021), Sources for Studying the Holocaust: A Guide (Routledge Guides to Using Historical Sources) (Bartrop 2023), Quantifying the archives: leveraging the norms and tools of data science to conduct ethical research on the Holocaust (Lerner 2021).  
  

After the review, the proposal will be either accepted or rejected. The author shall be informed about the decision within the above-mentioned deadlines.   

The official language of the conference is English. A proposed abstract should be written in English.   

Before making a proposal submission, we encourage all scholars to familiarise themselves with theoretical background provided by advanced Holocaust Studies, memory studies and cultural identity studies, in particular:  


1. The concept of contemporary Holocaust memory (Agamben 2018; Walden 2021; Rupnow 2024) and postmemory (Hirsch 1997, 2001, 2008; Hirsch and Spitzer 2009; Sicher 2000, 2004; Goertz 1998; Kaplan 2011);  
2. The concept of trauma studies in relation to the Holocaust and genocide (LaCapra 1998, 2001; Wood 1999; Caruth 1995, 2016; Kellermann 2001, 2013; Edkins 2003; Bell D. 2010; Laub 2017);  

3. The socio-cultural approach focused on contemporary European identity after the Second World War and the Holocaust (Judt 1992, 2005, 2012; Epstein and Lefkovitz 2001; Bell S. 2022); 

4. The concept of multidirectional (Rothberg 2009), cosmopolitan (Levy and Sznaider 2002, 2006; Assmann, A. 2010), and transnational (Craps and Rothberg 2011; De Cesari, and Rigney, 2014; Delgado et al. 2024) memory of the Holocaust;  

5. The deliberative paradigm in the study of exclusion and past and present injustices of various kinds (Habermas 1984, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1998; Rawls, 1971, 1999, 1993; Dryzek 2000, Mouffe 2000).  

The gendered nature of knowledge should be taken into account while conducting the research, both in terms of understanding how gender related to individual experiences during the Holocaust and in terms of taking into consideration structural dimension of gender inequality, which resulted in historians often overlooking the gender aspect of the Holocaust (Waxman 2017).