11-13 October 2026, Łódź, Poland

Call for applications

Personal documents were identified as a distinct research category over 70 years ago by the Dutch historian and Holocaust survivor Jacques Presser. As a researcher documenting the fate of Dutch Jews during the war, he encountered the stories of both survivors and perpetrators. In his pioneering research on the wartime experiences of Jews in…

Over the past decades, the study of egodocuments has developed into a significant and dynamic area of research. Diaries, correspondence, memoirs, travel accounts, almanacs, and autobiographical notes were once regarded as marginal sources, often considered too subjective or too fragmentary to sustain broader historical interpretation. Today, they are increasingly recognised as indispensable for…