International Summer-School 2023: Post-Holocaust-Remedies

Welcome to the website of the Post-Holocaust Remedies Summer School 2023, which has been organized by the Chair of Public Law and International Law, Justus Liebig University Giessen, in cooperation with the Law Faculty of Reichman University (Herzliya, Israel) as part of the project “The Development of Legal Reparations Instruments after the Holocaust as a Learning Process”. Students of law and related disciplines are cordially invited to apply for participation in the four-week summer school from August 18, 2023 - September 15, 2023. There were 25 full scholarship places available for the two-week curriculum on the history and further development of legal reparation instruments for dealing with the consequences of National Socialist crimes of violence, which were awarded to ten students each from Israel and Germany. A further five scholarships were awarded to Colombian students.

During the two-week stay in Israel and Germany, the participants will deal with the key legal issues relating to reparation instruments for Holocaust victims. The aim was to take a critical look at legal concepts and premises and the (quasi-) judicial handling of them in different contexts, both at international and national level. For example, the dynamics of the legal and historical definition of the “ghetto” under the Act on the Payment of Pensions from Employment in a Ghetto (ZRBG) were examined with reference to the relevant case law and the implications of such a definition were evaluated in the light of “transitional justice”. The courses were given an interdisciplinary orientation to ensure the necessary supplementation of a purely legal perspective with historical and social science issues. The lecturers therefore also represented an international and academically heterogeneous group, including academics as well as those affected and practitioners, for example from the judiciary or archives. This ensures a variety of perspectives and insights into the topic. The teaching units were accompanied by excursions to relevant institutions, such as a visit to Yad Vashem in Berlin, where the students met with representatives of the German government to exchange ideas.

The students had the opportunity to explore problems and questions relating to the topic from an academic, political, social and judicial perspective. This gave them the opportunity to come into contact with other participants and stakeholders from research, politics and associations of those affected from different countries during their studies and thus to network internationally at an early stage.