The Malach Centre for Visual History Has Been Open to the Public for 13 Years
The Malach Centre for Visual History at the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics of CUNI MFF has been open to researchers and the public already for 13 years. At a conference held on January 30, 2023, in the Refectory in Malá Strana, its coordinators summed up the activities so far and outlined upcoming plans.
The Malach Centre for Visual History provides researchers, educators, students and the general public with local access to four digital archives of oral historical interviews, which collectively contain over 60,000 audio-visual recordings of the historical events covering the history of the entire 20th century.
“The Malach Center for Visual History is an effort to continue and develop the successful cooperation between Charles University and the USC Shoah Foundation,” explained Jiří Kocián, the center’s coordinator. “Our goal is to inform about less known mass violent acts in Europe through oral history,” added Karin Roginer Hofmeister, whose research activities at the Malach Center primarily concern the history of Jews in Southeast Europe.
There are six separate workstations in the CUNI MFF library on Malostranské náměstí, where any academic community and the general public can work with the available archives. School groups and projects have been also strongly encouraged. “The Malach Center also cooperates with schools, as the material of the archive can be a very valuable and unique addition to the mainstream curriculum of 20th century history. The Malach Center is thus open to students and pupils free of charge. The capacity is approximately 20 people. Within the project IWalk USC Shoah Foundation, high school students can create interactive walks around a variety of locations related to Jewish history.”
OPMK, cuni.cz, photo by Tomáš Princ
