Michael Hollogschwandtner

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Public History

Michael Hollogschwandtner is a doctoral candidate at the chair of Public History at the University of Vienna. He studied Communication Sciences as well as History and Political Education/Psychology and Philosophy (teaching subjects) at the University of Vienna. Michael Hollogschwandtner has been working as educator for different institutions dedicated to political education, including the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistence (DÖW).

Research interests: Public History, Austrian memory politics, Holocaust Education, History Education, and Oral History

Current research project: Beliefs in ‘Holocaust educationʼ. An interview study of tour guides at memorial sites.

In his dissertation, Michael Hollogschwandtner aims to explore an important, yet mostly overlooked group of history educators: Tour guides at memorial sites and their beliefs regarding ‘Holocaust education’ – a concept that became highly influential in (Western) Europe and beyond. Following Marko Demantowsky’s model of public history, this discourse can be understood as a basic narrative. The reproduction of such narratives is to be ensured by everyday institutions. Among these institutions, memorial sites are of specific importance for the discourse on learning about the crimes of the National Socialist regime. However, we know very little about the views and practices of those actors actually performing the educational work at memorial sites, especially in Austria. Focussing on the Mauthausen Memorial, Austria’s most important concentration-camp memorial, Michael Hollogschwandtner therefore explores whether the concept of ‘Holocaust educationʼ shapes the guides‘ professional beliefs and, if so, in which ways this occurs. Using interviews and group discussions, in this Ph.D. project, a typology of the genesis of educators’ professional beliefs will be developed. In this way, the dynamics between past-related individual assumptions and collective processes of identity formation can be analysed.

Publications:

  • Holocaust Education – ein Nebenjob? Zu den Rahmenbedingungen der außerschulischen Erziehung nach/über Auschwitz in Österreich (Vienna 2021).
  • Die Forschungen von Florian Freund und Hans Safrian, die Shoah-Namensmauer und das Ausmaß der geschichtspolitischen Wende. In Jutta Fuchshuber/Lukas Meissel (ed.s): Aufregende Forschung. Zeitgeschichtliche Interventionen von Hans Safrian (Vienna 2022) pp. 252–257.