Timothy Snyder at Freud Museum Vienna: Recording now available
View Timothy Snyder and Stephen Naron's presentation "Anecdotes and Arguments: How the Color of Individual Life Allows for Broader Interpretations of the Holocaust" at the Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna on YouTube.
Description: Is the Holocaust history, or is it memory? We record the witnesses, and we record the events. For decades though, the testimony of witnesses was regarded skeptically by scholars who sought larger explanations. In this talk, The Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) Lesia Ukraїnka Permanent Fellow Timothy Snyder demonstrates how the details of individual experience open avenues for broader argument about the causes of the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. Framing the Holocaust as both a historical event and a field of remembrance, this event reflects on how narratives are shaped, preserved, and interpreted across generations. It underscores the importance of testimonies and archival collections not only as evidence, but as a vital lens through which broader historical meanings emerge. The talk is followed by a discussion with Stephen Naron and the audience.
Timothy Snyder is IWM Lesia Ukraїnka Permanent Fellow. He holds the Chair of Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The renowned historian and public intellectual is the author and editor of over twenty books and the recipient of numerous prizes and honorary doctorates. His award-winning publications include Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books 2010), Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Tony Judt, New York: Penguin Press, 2012), Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2015), On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017), The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2018), and his recently published book On Freedom (New York: Crown, 2024).
Stephen Naron is the director of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. He has worked as an archivist/librarian since 2003, when he received his MSIS from the University of Texas, Austin. Naron pursued a Magister in Jewish studies/history at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, TU. Together with historian Julie Dawson and filmmaker Ambrus Hernádi, he created "We Lived ... In the Ninth District," a video installation drawn from the Fortunoff Archive at Yale, currently on display at Showroom Berggasse 19. Since March 2026, Naron is an IWM Non-Resident Fellow.
This event was hosted in cooperation with the Sigmund Freud Museum. Visit the Institute for Human Science's website for upcoming events: https://www.iwm.at/upcoming-events