Discovering the Place where All They Had Ended: A Study in Holocaust Toponym Georeferencing and Spatial Association
Date
2015-03-24
Authors
Bekisz, Michael J
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Abstract
This thesis is a geohistoric forensic case study that addresses how toponym, or place name deviation may hinder the processes of georeferencing and spatial association. The temporal and spatial constraint for this study is World War II era Lithuania, where the key historical reference is a Holocaust related document known as the Jager Report. This report chronicles temporal, spatial and cultural data related to genocide actions carried out at multiple locations over a five month period in 1941 by occupying Nazi German forces in Lithuania and the Baltic Region. A methodology will be illustrated to identify and mitigate hindering factors such as toponym translation between disparate languages and culturally unique alphabets containing diacritics. This methodology will include the use of historical maps, gazetteers and databases to cross-reference spatial information in order to improve the understanding of locational data and to discover what geospatial context is associated with the name of a place.
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Keywords
Toponym, Georeference, Spatial association, Holocaust, Lithuania, Germany