Daan de Leeuw

Junior Fellow (10/2023 – 12/2024)

The Geography of Slave Labor: Dutch Jews and the Third Reich, 1942–1945

This project looks at the movement of Jewish forced labourers through the concentration camp system. The Germans moved the prisoners to wherever the war industry needed them. This kind of forced relocation was ubiquitous, yet it has received little attention from scholars. This interdisciplinary project investigates how Dutch-Jewish forced labourers experienced these frequent relocations. It uses spatial and social history methods and is based on survivors' testimonies and administrative documents. By using geographical information systems and manual cartography to visualise the routes through the camp system, the project opens up a new perspective on both the plight of Dutch Jewish forced labourers and the social dynamics between concentration camp inmates.

Daan de Leeuw, PhD candidate at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University. Yad Vashem Summer Research Fellow, Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund Grant recipient, Fellow at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute of Contemporary History, EHRI Conny Kristel Fellow and Ben and Zelda Cohen Fellow at the USHMM.

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Vlasta Kordová

Junior Fellow (03/2024 – 08/2024)

Bandenbekämpfung: The Nazi Persecution of Objective Enemies in the Reflection of the “Heydrichiada” and the Slovak National Uprising

The project examines the methods of fighting partisans used by the German occupiers and their connection to the Holocaust. It conceptualises the term "fighting gangs" used by the Nazis and shows how it became ideologically charged (followed by the concept of "war of extermination"). The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on the earlier development as well as the goals of Nazi "security policy" and its main instrument - the police. The empirical part then applies the results of the theoretical analysis to two examples where the National Socialist security forces had to react to an immediate "threat": the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in May 1942 and the operation against the Slovak National Uprising in autumn 1944.

Vlasta Kordová, graduate of the Philosophical Faculty and the Faculty of Education at Charles University in Prague, currently a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jan Evangelista Purkynê University in Ústí nad Labem. During her doctoral studies numerous scholarships in Germany and Austria. Author of several articles and two monographs.

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Hannah Riedler

Junior Fellow (10/2023 – 08/2024)

Between Deportation, Forced Labour and Germanisation. The Umwanderer Central Office in Occupied Poland 1939-1941

Immediately after the beginning of the conquest of Poland in 1939, the German occupiers began deporting hundreds of thousands of people from the annexed territories to the Generalgouvernement - Jews and non-Jews alike. The newly founded Umwandererzentralstelle (UWZ) was responsible for coordinating the expulsion as well as the transport of those affected. Many of the UWZ perpetrators later worked alongside Adolf Eichmann on the deportation of Jews. In addition to these personal connections, the project focuses on the daily deportation practice of the UWZ and its coordinating and ideological function in carrying out the immense population displacements.

Hannah Riedler, MA studies with a focus on Eastern European History at the University of Vienna, doctoral student at the University of Klagenfurt. Research interests: Occupied Poland in the Second World War, Holocaust, deportations in Poland in the Soviet and German and German occupation zones.

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Mirnes Sokolović

Junior Fellow (10/2023 – 03/2024)

The Construction of Europe by the Yugoslav Literary Right-Wing

The project is concerned with war propaganda and ideas about Europe in the Yugoslav literary right of the 1930s and 1940s. It focuses on the construction of a right-wing propaganda style and a discriminatory and a discriminatory cultural concept of Europe. The anti-Semitic glossary that helped to remove one of its constituent components from European culture and to construct an "ethnically pure" European culture characterised the mainstream of right-wing propaganda in Serbo-Croatia during the 1930s and 1940s. The project seeks answers to the questions of what led avant-garde writers to radical ideologies, what role intellectuals and the intellectuals and the media in legitimising crime and genocide and what makes the difference between right-wing and liberal international concepts of Europe.

Mirnes Sokolović, MA studies with a focus on in South Slavic literature at the University of Sarajevo. He is a member of the of the founding team and the editorial of the literary magazine SIC! and worked in the cultural departments of E-novina in Belgrad and Oslobođenje in Sarajevo. He has published a novel, two volumes of essays and prose, essays, satire, literary criticism and articles in magazines.

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Olga Kartashova

Junior Fellow (11/2024 – 08/2025)

The International Networks and Jewish Efforts to Prosecute Holocaust Perpetrators in Poland

This project delves into the advocacy efforts of Polish Jews for human and minority rights throughout World War II and its aftermath. It highlights the continuity of activism initiated by Jewish lawyers, community leaders, and individuals from the interwar period, which persisted despite the challenges of war and occupation. Contextualising postwar trials and Jewish investigations within this ongoing activism underscores their organic evolution rather than viewing them as isolated events. Jewish lobbyists played a pivotal role in advocating for minority rights, gathering evidence, and providing testimony in courts, representing the Jewish community as a semi-autonomous entity within the evolving landscape of international criminal law. This study contributes a fresh perspective on survivors' conception of justice, their engagement with Polish and other governments in pursuit of it, and their support for investigations and trials. Utilising extensive international networks for information exchange among survivors, domestic and foreign Jewish communities, and legal entities at national and international levels ensured a wealth of sources and witness testimonies for Holocaust-related trials, thereby enhancing the prospects of holding perpetrators accountable.

Olga Kartashova is a Ph.D. candidate in Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, specialising in Eastern European Holocaust history, aftermath, memory, historiography, and trials. With a BA in Polish and Jewish studies from the University of Wrocław, an MA in comparative history from Central European University, and an MA in Holocaust studies from Haifa University, Olga Kartashova brings a diverse academic background. As a contractor researcher at the USHMM Mandel Center, she focused on the legal aspects of Holocaust history. Olga Kartashova has led seminars on East European and Jewish roots of international law and was awarded prestigious fellowships, including from the Saul Kagan Claims Conference Fellowship for Advanced Shoah Studies, and the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich.

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Markéta Bajgerová Verly

Junior Fellow (10/2024 – 08/2025)

One Past, Two Histories: Exhibiting the Shanghai Jewish Refugees in China and Austria in Comparative Perspective

Many museums around the World launched exhibitions on the topic of Shanghai Jewish refugees in the past few years, putting the history of 20,000 Jews who fled to Shanghai 1933–1941 on display. Though connected in topic, the exhibitions do not present a unified historical account. This research project will analyse and compare two Shanghai Jewish Refugees history exhibitions that opened in 2020: the temporary exhibit titled “Little Vienna in Shanghai” by the Jewish Museum in Vienna and the reworked permanent exhibition of the Shanghai Jewish Refugees. The two exhibits present diametrically different versions of the experience of the European Jewry in wartime Shanghai, the former addressing the challenges that awaited the refugees in Shanghai, the latter romanticising the situation and claiming utopian harmony between the Chinese and the Jews. This project will deconstruct both exhibitions, exploring the question: What does the memorialisation of the Shanghai Jewish refugees reveal about the politics of the globalisation of the Holocaust?

Markéta Bajgerová Verly is a PhD student in the ERC project “Globalized Memorial Museums” at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and at the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on “War of Resistance against Japan” museums in contemporary China. In 2020, she obtained an MA degree in China Studies at the Yenching Academy of Peking University. In China, she led a Dean’s Grant project mapping 30 museums across China devoted to the memory of the War of Resistance and studied its memory politics. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Glasgow in Politics and History.

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Elena Beletckaia

Junior Fellow (10/2025 – 07/2026)

The Notion of Home in the Holocaust Discourse: Post-war Migration in/to Eastern Europe, Israel, and the United States

This research project explores the concept of home and its sentimental value in Holocaust survivors’ narratives through a comparative analysis of audiovisual testimonies. Focusing on survivors who migrated to North America, Israel, or returned to Eastern Europe during the post-war period (1945–1949), this study employs a mixed-methods approach that integrates thematic, narrative, phenomenological, and multimodal analyses. The research examines how survivors articulate their experiences of home, displacement, and identity reconstruction. The study incorporates Noah Shenker’s methodological framework to analyze how the recording environment influences memory sharing, highlighting the emotional depth of Holocaust survivors’ recollections. Additionally, the project applies assimilation and historical trauma theories to explore the lasting emotional and intergenerational impacts of the Holocaust on perceptions of home and identity. Elena Beletckaia is a PhD candidate at Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies (HfJS) in Germany, specialising in Jewish literature and Holocaust studies. Her doctoral research focuses on Holocaust testimonies and explores the sentimental value of home within Holocaust discourse, particularly concerning post-war migration to Eastern Europe, Israel, and the United States. She has participated in recognised educational programs organised by institutions like Paideia, Yad Vashem International Holocaust School, USHMM, and the International Network of Genocide Scholars. Additionally, she is an active member of the H-Judaic network, contributing as an editor.

Elena Beletckaia is a PhD candidate at Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies (HfJS) in Germany, specialising in Jewish literature and Holocaust studies. Her doctoral research focuses on Holocaust testimonies and explores the sentimental value of home within Holocaust discourse, particularly concerning post-war migration to Eastern Europe, Israel, and the United States. She has participated in recognised educational programs organised by institutions like Paideia, Yad Vashem International Holocaust School, USHMM, and the International Network of Genocide Scholars. Additionally, she is an active member of the H-Judaic network, contributing as an editor.

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Jovana Cvetićanin

Junior Fellow (10/2025 – 07/2026)
Claims Conference Saul Kagan Fellow in Advanced Shoah Studies

Yugoslavia and the Shoah 1944-1991

This project explores the evolution of Holocaust narrative and memory in Yugoslavia through the testimonies of Yugoslav Holocaust survivors, the Yugoslav press, and the complete case of Yugoslavia at the Eichmann trial. Focusing on the varied fates of Jews in different parts of occupied and partitioned Yugoslavia, it examines the initial formation of Holocaust narratives, the emergence of survivor stories and media representations in the immediate post-war era, and their transformation over nearly five decades.

Drawing on unexamined archival records, unpublished and unexplored personal accounts, and newspaper articles, it reveals two crucial but overlooked aspects of Holocaust memory, offering a deeper understanding of how awareness developed. By presenting the full Yugoslav case at the highly publicised Eichmann trial, including the narrative it generated about the Holocaust in Yugoslavia, the study provides new insight into the role of the Yugoslav state and its official stance towards the Holocaust and genocide.

Jovana Cvetićanin , PhD candidate at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, holds a BA in Law, Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, and an MA in Holocaust Studies from the University of Haifa, The Weiss-Livnat International MA Program in Holocaust Studies, School of History. She is author of the monograph Yugoslavia and the Eichmann Trial, recipient of Yad Vashem Award for 2019, 2023 Israel Gutman z”l Prize for Holocaust Research, 2025 The Raab Center Prize, and a Claims Conference Saul Kagan Fellowship in Advanced Shoah Studies.

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Olga Kartashova

CEU-VWI Fellow (funded by La Fodation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah) (10/2025 – 08/2026)

The International Networks and Jewish Efforts to Prosecute Holocaust Perpetrators in Poland

This project delves into the advocacy efforts of Polish Jews for human and minority rights throughout World War II and its aftermath. It highlights the continuity of activism initiated by Jewish lawyers, community leaders, and individuals from the interwar period, which persisted despite the challenges of war and occupation. Contextualising postwar trials and Jewish investigations within this ongoing activism underscores their organic evolution rather than viewing them as isolated events. Jewish lobbyists played a pivotal role in advocating for minority rights, gathering evidence, and providing testimony in courts, representing the Jewish community as a semi-autonomous entity within the evolving landscape of international criminal law. This study contributes a fresh perspective on survivors' conception of justice, their engagement with Polish and other governments in pursuit of it, and their support for investigations and trials. Utilising extensive international networks for information exchange among survivors, domestic and foreign Jewish communities, and legal entities at national and international levels ensured a wealth of sources and witness testimonies for Holocaust-related trials, thereby enhancing the prospects of holding perpetrators accountable.

Olga Kartashova is a Ph.D. candidate in Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, specialising in Eastern European Holocaust history, aftermath, memory, historiography, and trials. With a BA in Polish and Jewish studies from the University of Wrocław, an MA in comparative history from Central European University, and an MA in Holocaust studies from Haifa University, Olga Kartashova brings a diverse academic background. As a contractor researcher at the USHMM Mandel Center, she focused on the legal aspects of Holocaust history. Olga Kartashova has led seminars on East European and Jewish roots of international law and was awarded prestigious fellowships, including from the Saul Kagan Claims Conference Fellowship for Advanced Shoah Studies, and the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich.

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Jackie Olson

Junior Fellow (10/2025 – 07/2026)

The Politics of Death in Postwar Austria, 1945-1970

This project examines the politics of burial in postwar Austria, particularly its rural eastern regions, from 1945 to 1970. It investigates how local Austrians, Jewish expats, government officials, and religious organisations such as the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG) engaged with the graves of Jewish victims, eastern European forced labourers, and Soviet POWs. It explores how these groups participated in mourning and how their relationships to burial sites shaped early Austrian postwar memory, especially under Soviet occupation. Focusing on what death meant to different generational, national, and confessional identities amid a volatile postwar Europe, the project argues that graves offer a unique lens on personal mourning in a time of defeat and shame. Shifting attention from governments and geopolitics to small-scale rural actors, it shows how local engagement with burial sites illuminates the human dimensions of Austria’s immediate postwar years and offers new insight into how communities navigated loss, memory, and identity after the war.

Jackie Olson is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at Stanford University. Her research is on postwar memory and the cultural implications of changing burial practices in Germany and Austria. Jackie received her B.A. in History and German from Vanderbilt University and lived in Vienna teaching English on an Austrian Fulbright Grant. Jackie has taught on the history of the dead in modern Europe and was awarded prestigious fellowships, including the Summer Graduate Research Fellowship at the USHMM Mandel Center. Currently, she is a research assistant for a spatial narratives project using Holocaust testimonies funded by the National Science Foundation.

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