Brief bio on John Conway

John Conway was born in London, England, and took all his studies at St John's College Cambridge. He emigrated to Canada in 1955 and taught International Relations for two years at the University of Manitoba. In 1957 he joined the Department of History at UBC, and continued teaching Modern European History and International Relations until 1995.

In 1998 he was appointed the Smallman Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of History at the University of Western Ontario. His principal scholarly work has been to research the role of the German Churches in the 1930s and 1940s, as a result of which he wrote his book The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945, which was first published in Britain in 1968, and subsequently was translated into German, French and Spanish, and was reissued in 1997. His researches took him frequently to Germany, which he has visited almost every year, including several sabbatical periods at various German universities. 

In 1970 he was a founding member of the Scholars' Conference on the German Church and the Holocaust, and has since written a large number of articles dealing with the role of the European churches and the Vatican during the Holocaust, as well as on the topic of Christian-Jewish relations during the twentieth century. He has paid three visits to Israel, and lectured at the Yad Vashem Memorial Foundation in Jerusalem in 1993. 

From 1995 he has been the Director of the Association of Contemporary Church Historians, and editor of its monthly Newsletter which has a worldwide audience and is available on e-mail. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte and the Journal of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 

John Conway has played an active part in several associations connected with international relations in Vancouver, including being Chairman of the Vancouver Branch of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, and of the United Nations Association. For ten years he was the executive vice-chairman of the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society of Canada, and in this connection paid several visits to India. He is now a member of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster's Refugee Liaison Committee. On the UBC campus, he has been long associated with the Student Christian Movement, and the World University Service, for which he acted for many years as the Faculty Advisor. He is currently a member of St James' Anglican Parish, Vancouver.

In 1977 he was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal.  Dr. Conway, noted scholar and researcher in modern Church History, is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of British Columbia.     

Dr. Conway is the editor of the Newsletter of the Association of Contemporary Church Historians. For more information on the Newsletter, click here.

Description of article files

This unique sector of Dr. Conway's collection consists of approximately 400 files of research notes, letters, essays and manuscripts on various topics.  There are numerous subjects with a focus on:    

• Jewish Holocaust (1939-1945)
• Resistance to Nazism
• German 20th C. Church History
• German Church Struggle
• 20th C. Christian Ecumenism
• Jewish-Christian Relations

There are also extensive files on figures of major importance, including Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Fredrich Siegmund-Schultze.  Most of Siegmund-Schultze's ecumenical journal, Die Eiche, which was shut down by the Nazis in 1933, is included in hard copy.  The library has classified this material according to the Library of Congress classification system, and has created for each item a MARC record on the library's automated catalogue. A list of the files, alphabetized by title, will be found on these web pages:

1. Primary and Secondary Source Files A-E
2. Primary and Secondary Source Files F-L
3. Primary and Secondary Source Files M-Z

Description of book collection

Dr. Conway has donated more than 400 monographs from his personal collection.  These are mostly in English, with some German and French books.  The main focus is:    

• International Relations
• 20th C. European History
• Nazi era in Germany

The monograph collection can be searched through a telnet connection to the Regent Carey Library Catalogue.  Instructions on how to make this connection are found on the following here: dial-in-access.htm 

The Conway Collection books cannot be searched as a group but can be recognized by a call number ending in RRAR, e.g.:

Conway, John S.  The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945. 
BR 856 .C657 1997 RRAR1

Click here for pictures of the collection.

LINKS: Selected Holocaust sites. Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/    
This site at the University of Minnesota includes links and bibliographies.

Drew University Center for Holocaust Study
http://www.depts.drew.edu/chs/ 
This university site provides bibliographies and suggested links.

Facing History & Ourselves
http://www.facing.org/  
This National Foundation site for high school students has connections with Harvard University.

Holocaust & Genocide Studies
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/holocaust.html  
This is a university-based site with many links to international holocaust literature.  The site is constantly updated and is well-designed.

Holocaust History
http://www.holocaust-history.org/  
This current site contains documentary evidence, reproduction of works and direct refutation of Holocaust denial essays.

Holocaust Info Online
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6719/   
This site is created by Yizkor and includes links to much factual data.

Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center
http://www.holocaustedu.org/  
This provides a reference site for teachers at all schooling levels including university.

Holocaust World Resource Center
http://www.hwrc.org/  
This site has lists of current survivors and other good links.

Illustrated History of the Holocaust
http://www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/  
This well-designed site was created by the Father Ryan High School Computer Science Honors and Holocaust-Genocide classes. It was done as a research project with basic information and links on the Holocaust.

International Commission on the Holocaust Era
http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/fc/World/Holocaust/  
This is regarding Holocaust insurance claims and related web sites.

Jewish Student Online Research Center
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/holo.html  
This is one of the Holocaust Ring sites with links to others.

Kierkegaard and Nazism
http://libnt2.lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/stolaf.htm
This is an essay by Charles Bellinger "Toward a Kierkegaardian Understanding of Hitler, Stalin, and the Cold War."

Library of the Holocaust
http://remember.org/
This has well-organized links to other sources.

Literature of the Holocaust
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/holhome.html  
This effective university site gives links to other Holocaust sources.

NAAF Project
http://www.neveragain.org/  
(Never Again, Always & Forever) - This is an online memorial with bibliographies.

Switzerland and the Holocaust Assets
http://www.giussani.com/holocaust-assets/  
This site was created by a Swiss journalist in 1997 and deals with links to information on Holocaust Victims Assets Litigation.  

Women and the Holocaust
http://www3.sympatico.ca/mighty1
This site contains essays, poetry, bibliogrpahies, personal testimonies and more of women who lived in this time.

Yahoo Internet Subject Directory
A Yahoo general search under Holocaust  yields 6 category matches at
http://www.yahoo.com 

John Conway's e-mail address: jconway@interchange.ubc.ca