Presentation of the R&D projects "Portugal and the Holocaust: research and memory"

The FCT, in collaboration with the national "Never Forget" program, will hold a session to present the six research and development (R&D) projects selected under the special support program "Portugal and the Holocaust: research and memory". The session will take place on November 25 at the Galveias Palace in Lisbon, starting at 2pm, and is part of the national commitment to promote education, memory and research on the subject. Entry to the event requires prior registration and the program is now available. The event will be broadcast online.

These six projects were approved for funding earlier this year as part of a program launched in 2020, the year in which several Holocaust-related and human rights-related anniversaries were celebrated in Portugal, including the seventy-fifth anniversary of the country's entry into the United Nations and the eightieth anniversary of the rescue of thousands of Jews by Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes. In this context, this special support from the FCT was intended to fund research and development projects that focused on the intertwining of Portuguese history with various aspects of this tragic period. The choice of projects sought to value interdisciplinarity and the production of results of various kinds, from scientific publications to educational resources, in order to strengthen the presence of this topic on the national scientific agenda and, at the same time, contribute to the dissemination of knowledge and the preservation of the memory of the Holocaust. The winners received funding in the order of 31 to 34 thousand euros, translating into a total of 200 thousand euros for this support.

At the presentation session, the projects will be divided into two panels, depending on their area of intervention. The first brings together projects aimed at producing and making available educational resources and the second focuses on research projects based on documents and archives. The session will also feature speeches by the President and Vice-President of the FCT Board of Directors, Helena Pereira and José Paulo Esperança, the commissioner of the national "Never Forget" program, Marta Santos Pais, the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Manuel Heitor, and the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ana Paula Zacarias.

In addition to the presentations by the researchers and leaders of the institutions participating in the projects, a brochure published by the FCT will be distributed during the session, which brings together the work and intervention proposals of each project, with the identification of the participating national and international institutions.