The Université de Strasbourg was relocated to Clermont-Ferrand during the Second World War and served as a centre of resistance against the National Socialists and German occupiers. Many university members, faculty, and students were deported to various concentration camps, including that at Buchenwald. In 1947, just two years after the war ended, the Université de Strasbourg published »Témoignages strasbourgeois«, an impressive collection of reports by survivors who described their deportation to the camps and the French resistance against National Socialists.
 
A selection of these reports have been translated and are now available for the first time in German. Editors Anett Dremel, Michael Löffelsender, and Jens-Christian Wagner powerfully relate the experiences and observations of courageous Université de Strasbourg members who survived deportation and forced labour in the concentration camps. Henning Schmidgen contextualises these reports in the history of European universities and academic history.
 
On Thursday, 24 October 2024 at 8 pm, the translated collection will be presented as part of the ACHAVA Festspiele:
 
Book Launch

»Témoignages strasbourgeois. Berichte französischer Überlebender der Konzentrationslager Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora« (reports by French survivors of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps). Edited by Anett Dremel, Michael Löffelsender, and Jens-Christian Wagner
Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag publishing house, 2024
https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835357716-temoignages-strasbourgeois.html

Thursday, 24 October 2024, 6 pm
Lounge of the University Library, Steubenstraße. 6, 99423 Weimar

Prof. Dr. Jens-Christian Wagner, Director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorial Foundation and Professor of »Geschichte in Medien und Öffentlichkeit« at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, and Prof. Dr. Henning Schmidgen, Professor of »Medientheorie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte« at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, will be hosting the event. They will be providing insights into the personal experiences of the survivors.
 
All those interested are warmly invited to the book presentation.
 
Background:

The presentation of the book is part of the renaming of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar’s »Auditoriums Maximum« to the »Maurice-Halbwachs-Auditorium«. By naming its largest lecture theatre after the French sociologist and philosopher, the university is honouring the work and life of Maurice Halbwachs while also sending a clear signal against fascism and authoritarianism. Halbwachs was a professor at the Université de Strasbourg before teaching at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France in Paris. In August 1944, he was interned at the Buchenwald concentration camp where, following his deportation and imprisonment, he died on 15 March 1945. The renowned French thinker contributed significantly to the teaching of German sociology in France and coined the concept of collective memory, which continues to be relevant to this day. Within this context, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar is commemorating Maurice Halbwachs by renaming the previously neutrally named »Auditorium Maximum« the »Maurice Halbwachs Auditorium«.

The renaming ceremony is scheduled to take place on 4 December 2024.