HUMSS - John Swanson

Worlds in Flux: Lili Jacob, Bilky, and the Auschwitz Album

In this presentation I would like to describe my research project (and my goals with the project) concerning the Jewish communities during the twentieth century in the region of western Ukraine today referred to as Transcarpathia. Most people are familiar with images of these individuals from the photographs in the Auschwitz Album, which contain the only photographs of Jews arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau—photographs that can be found in almost all Holocaust museums and many publications. 

In order to answer broad questions concerning the advent of modernity in this borderland region as well as how concepts of belonging began to change I have chosen to investigate the conditions, changes, and conflicts in one community—the village of Bilky—and especially the experiences of one person—Lili Jacob, the woman who found the Auschwitz Album at the end of the war. Photographs of Lii Jacob and members of her family are also in the album. She was from the village of Bilky.