JERUSALEM (EJP)---Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research in Jerusalem opens Monday an international conference on the topic "The End of 1942: A Turning Point in World War II and in the Comprehension of the Final Solution?".
The 4-day, 15-session conference takes place in partnership with the Documentation Center of North African Jewry during WWII of the Ben-Zvi Institute and includes lecturers from Israel, the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, Poland, Australia, among others.
“At the end of 1942, the offensive efforts of the Allies in their war against Nazi Germany and its partners began to bear their first fruit, and the North African theater was the harbinger of this turn of events. It was enough to cautiously plant, for the first time, optimistic feelings about the future of the war,” said Prof. Dan Michman, Head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research of Yad Vashem.
“Yet at the same time, it began to dawn in the free world and in occupied Europe that a comprehensive and systematic war of annihilation was being conducted against the Jews – which was expressed in official statements and a number of declarations. What was the relationship and to what extent was the interaction between these two developments? How much did the awareness of the unprecedented fate of the Jews change – among non-Jews and Jews? At this conference, researchers from around the world will try clarify these issues from different perspectives, giving special attention to North Africa and its Jewish communities.”