photo credit: Dr. Charlotte Schallié
What happens when family history becomes part of the public archive?
Join us for a presentation and discussion with Head Archivist Aubrey Pomerance (Jewish Museum Berlin), Holocaust survivor Klaus Zwilsky, and Dr. Charlotte Schallié (University of Victoria) as they examine how archives with personal histories can be developed with care.
Thursday January 29th, 2026
10:00-11:30am
Format:
Webinar Presentation and discussion, followed by a Q&A.
Abstract:
Aubrey Pomerance, Head of Archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin, curates the Zwilsky family collection’s documents, photographs and objects relating to their experiences in Berlin, Germany, where they survived the Holocaust at the Jewish Hospital. This webinar will explore Aubrey’s archiving of the Zwilsky Collection in conversation with Dr. Charlotte Schallié, and they will be joined by Klaus to reflect upon his collaboration with Aubrey and the complexity of having personal family history become part of the public archives.
Aubrey, Klaus and Charlotte are working together on the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project to bring Klaus’s experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust to life in a graphic narrative illustrated by Gilad Seliktar. The publication will be completed in 2026, and more information about their work can be found here.
Speaker Bios:
Aubrey Pomerance is the Head of Archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin. Born in Calgary, Canada, he studies Jewish Studies and History at the Freie Universität Berlin. There he was a research assistant at the Institut für Judaistik in 1995 and 1996 and thereafter at the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institut for German Jewish history in Duisburg. In April 2001, he took up his position at the Jewish Museum Berlin, being responsible for the establishment of a branch of the Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute and for the museum’s archival collection. He is the community liaison overseeing the Zwilsky Collection working with Klaus Zwilsky and his family, and connected him with the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives (SCVN) Project.
Klaus Max Zwilsky was born in Berlin, Germany, on August 16, 1932. He and his parents survived the Nazi regime in the Berlin Jewish Hospital, where his father was an administrator, while his mother did forced labor at Siemens. Following the end of the war, Klaus became the first boy to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah in Berlin. In 1946, he and his parents emigrated to the United States.
After obtaining his Doctor of Science degree from MIT, Klaus pursued a career in Materials Science and Engineering.
In 2000, he began organizing an extensive collection of papers left by his parents, detailing the fate of his extended family who perished during the war. He organized his family’s personal papers from the war period and donated these documents to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Klaus has frequently returned to Berlin to participate in Holocaust workshops for German high school students and other educational programs organized by the Jewish Museum Berlin. He has also spoken extensively to share his personal experiences with high school and middle school students as well as social and professional groups in the United States.
Dr. Charlotte Schallié is a Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Victoria. Her teaching and research interests include memory studies, visual culture studies & graphic narratives, teaching and learning about the Holocaust, genocide and human rights education, community-engaged participatory research and arts-based action research. Together with Dr. Andrea Webb (UBC), she is the co-director of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project (www.visualnarratives.org), funded by a 7-year SSHRC Partnership Grant.
This event is presented in collaboration between UBC Public Humanities Hub and the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project.
Registration Required
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