Winson Chu

Senior Fellow (03/2024 – 07/2024)

The Lodz Ghetto and the Kriminalpolizei: Jews, Neighbours, and Perpetrators in the Holocaust

This project examines how local members of the criminal police in Nazi-occupied Poland participated in the Holocaust while promoting their "German-ness". Using their knowledge, the police men in the city of Lodz arrested and tortured their former neighbours, including those who were among the 200,000 Jews in the Lodz ghetto. An examination of official German documents as well as Jewish testimonies in Polish and Yiddish makes it possible to write the history of the ghetto from below and to understand how individual Jewish victims responded to their persecution. This approach views the history of the ghetto as a story of continuities, both spatially and chronologically, and offers a comprehensive account of German-Polish-Jewish interaction during the Holocaust as well as in twentieth-century Poland.

Winson Chu, Associate Professor for Modern Central European History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of The German Minority in Interwar Poland. He was a member of the board of the Polish Studies Association, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University and the Board of of the Central European History Society.

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Constantin Iordachi

Senior Fellow (10/2023 – 02/2024)

Cleansing Ultranationalism: A Comparative History of Fascism in Eastern Europe, 1918–1945

The project compares varieties of fascism in Eastern Europe in order to integrate the fascist movements and regimes in this region more firmly into general fascism research. Special attention is paid to the fascist pursuit of violent "cleansing" and the role that fascists in the region played in the planning and execution of the Holocaust. The aim of the project is to set a new research agenda for the comparative study of fascism and thus to contribute to the fine-tuning or fundamental modification of existing explanatory approaches. The comparative research on fascism should thus - in the sense of an exchange and comparison of scholarly traditions in Eastern and Western Europe – be set on new theoretical and methodological foundations.

Constantin Iordachi, Professor at the Institute of History of CEU, President of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies (ComFas) and member of Academia Europaea - The Academy of Europe. Member of the Academic Committee of the House of European History, Brussels. Iordachi is, among other things, editor-in-chief of the CEU Review of Books.

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Atinati Mamatsashvili

Senior Fellow (10/2023 – 04/2024)

Literature in the Face of Nazism. The Murderous Spaces of Anti-semitic Politics in the 1930’s and 1940’s

The project examines literary works by French-speaking authors in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. It explores how the Nazi policy of exclusion towards Jews manifested itself in the writings of authors who, from the 1930s onwards, alerted of the dangers of Nazi ideology and denounced "between the lines", directly or through clandestine publications, the conditions to which Jews were subjected. The study of the practice of persecution on the basis of literary works draws on questions of spatiality that the concepts of "exclusion" and "persecution" raise from the outset.

Atinati Mamatsashvili , Professor of Comparative Literature at the Ilia State University in Tbilisi. Main research interests: Literature and totalitarian regimes (Third Reich and Soviet Union), French and Francophone literature, and anti-Semitism. Member of the committee of the book series Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages (CHLEL).

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Kateřina Čapková

Senior Fellow (10/2024 – 03/2025)

From Forced Assimilation to Extermination. Two Divergent Policies Toward Roma and Sinti in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

The aim of this research project is a detailed analysis of the wartime experiences of Roma and Sinti in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, based on extensive archival research in central and local archives in the Czech Republic and in Germany, embedded in the European context of the Roma and Sinti Holocaust. Different models of discriminatory policies can be distinguished in the countries of Nazi-occupied Europe or in the countries of the Nazi allies. While in most of them segregation and deportation to concentration camps or mass murder prevailed, France is an example of the path of social engineering with the goal of forced assimilation. However, in no other country outside of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia can we find a situation in which both policies can be found in chronological order. Until the spring of 1942, the Protectorate government sought the forced assimilation of Roma into society; from the summer of 1942, local Roma and Sinti were deported to special camps, and from March 1943 directly to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This history of a completely opposite policy towards Roma and Sinti within a few years can help us to answer several crucial questions, the most important of which is the relationship, similarities and differences between the policies of segregation/extermination and forced assimilation that have accompanied the history of the Roma through the centuries to the present.

Kateřina Čapková is a senior researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and a teacher at both Charles University and NYU in Prague. Her research focuses on modern Jewish history in Europe, the history of refugees and migration, and, recently, the history of the Roma and Sinti. Her Czechs, Germans, Jews? National Identity and the Jews of Bohemia (Berghahn, 2012; in Czech 2005 and 2014) was called the Outstanding Academic Title of 2012 by Choice magazine. Together with Hillel Kieval she is co-editor of the multi-author volume Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands, which looks at the history of the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia from the early modern period to recent times (Penn Press, 2021; in German 2020; in Czech 2022; in Hebrew 2024). With Eliyana Adler she co-edited the volume Jewish and Romani Families in the Holocaust and its Aftermath (Rutgers UP, 2020) and with Kamil Kijek the volume Jewish Lives under Communism. New Perspectives (Rutgers UP, 2022). In 2016 she initiated the establishment of the Prague Forum for Romani Histories, an academic platform for sharing and encouraging research on history of Roma and Sinti.

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René Schlott

Senior Fellow (03/2025 – 08/2025)

Raul Hilberg (1926-2007). Biographical Studies on His Life, Work, and Impact

Shortly after the end of the war, Raul Hilberg, Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont from 1956 to 1991, was one of the first academics worldwide to deal with the Nazi genocide of the Jews of Europe. Hilberg, a Jewish exile who was born in Vienna in 1926 and fled to the USA in 1939, had returned to Europe as a young US soldier during the Second World War. After the end of the war, as a native German speaker, he spent years sifting through and evaluating the confiscated Nazi file material on behalf of the US government and thus gained the guiding idea for his scientific qualification work, in which he interpreted the Holocaust as a huge bureaucratic process.

This biographical study aims not only to trace the life of this extraordinary scientist, but also to follow the history of the reception of his early opus magnum The Destruction of the European Jews (1961). It was not translated into German (1982) and French (1985) until more than twenty years after its first publication. Each of these editions faced publication problems and triggered a variety of academic debates, not least because Hilberg relied entirely on the perpetrators' files and largely dispensed with testimonies from the victims.

Hilberg also had to put up with harsh criticism from other historians due to his critical portrayal of the Jewish councils in the ghettos and his skeptical assessment of the Jewish resistance. The task of the project will be to historise these disputes and to contrast them with Hilberg's memoirs (The Politics of Memory, published in 1996).

René Schlott initially completed a diploma in business administration alongside his commercial training. He then studied history, politics and journalism at the Free University and the Humboldt University Berlin and at the University of Geneva. From 2007, he was a scholarship holder at the graduate school “Transnational Media Events” at the University of Giessen, where he received his doctorate in 2011. From 2014 to 2022, he was a research associate at the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam. In 2013, he examined the estate of Raul Hilberg at the University of Vermont with a scholarship from the German Historical Institute Washington. Since 2008, Schlott has worked as a freelance author and book critic, e.g., for Spiegel Online, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

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Senior Fellowships 2023/24 at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) invites applications for its senior fellowships for the academic year 2022/2023.

The VWI is an academic institution dedicated to the research and documentation of antisemitism, racism, nationalism and the Holocaust. Conceived and established during Simon Wiesenthal’s lifetime, the VWI receives funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, the Federal Chancellery as well as the City of Vienna. Research at the Institute focuses on the Holocaust in its European context, including its antecedents and its aftermath.

Distinguished scholars who have completed their PhDs, have produced works of scholarship and have long-standing experience working at universities or academic institutions are eligible to ap-ply for a senior fellowship. Senior fellows will be able to conduct research on a topic of their choice in the field of Holocaust studies at the Institute. Beyond the research work itself, the stay at the Institute is intended to encourage communication and scientific exchange among the fellows at the Institute. Senior fellows are expected to support the Institute’s academic work and provide research advice and support to junior fellows. Senior fellows are further expected to contribute to the academic culture of Vienna, e.g., by giving guest lectures and seminars at academic institutions. Senior fellows must be regularly present at the VWI.

Research projects are to focus on a topic relevant to the research interests of the VWI. Within this parameter, applicants are free to choose their own topic, approach, and methodology. Fellows will have access to the archives of the Institute. It is expected that fellows will make use of relevant resources from the collection in their research projects. Research results will be the subject of formal fellows’ discussions and will be presented to the wider public at regular intervals. At the end of their stay, fellows are required to submit a research paper which will be peer-reviewed and published in VWI’s e-journal S:I.M.O.N. – Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation.

Senior fellowships are awarded for a duration of minimum five months. Fellows will have a working place and internet access and will receive a monthly stipend of € 2,500. In addition, VWI will cover housing costs during the fellowship (up to € 700 per month) as well as the costs of a round-trip to and from Vienna (coach class airfare or 2nd class train fare). There is an additional one-off payment of € 500 available for research conducted outside of Vienna or photocopying costs outside of the Institute, where applicable.

Senior fellows will be selected by the International Academic Advisory Board of the VWI.

Applications may be submitted in English or German and must include the following documents:

• completed application form,
• a detailed description of the research project, including the research objectives, an over-view of existing research on the topic and methodology (12,000-character max.),
• a list of publications and a CV with a photo (optional).

Please send your application in electronic format (in one integral *.pdf-file) with the subject head-er “VWI Research Fellowships 2023/24” and submit it by 13 January 2023 to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you do not get confirmation that we have received your proposal, please contact us.

Senior Fellowships 2024/25 at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) invites applications for its senior fel-lowships for the academic year 2024/2025.

The VWI is an academic institution dedicated to the research and documentation of antisemitism, racism, nationalism and the Holocaust. Conceived and established during Simon Wiesenthal’s lifetime, the VWI receives funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, the Federal Chancellery as well as the City of Vienna. Research at the Institute focus-es on the Holocaust in its European context, including its antecedents and its aftermath.

Distinguished scholars who have completed their PhDs, have produced works of scholarship and have long-standing experience working at universities or academic institutions are eligible to ap-ply for a senior fellowship. Senior fellows will be able to conduct research on a topic of their choice in the field of Holocaust studies at the Institute. Beyond the research work itself, the stay at the Institute is intended to encourage communication and scientific exchange among the fel-lows at the Institute. Senior fellows are expected to support the Institute’s academic work and provide research advice and support to junior fellows. Senior fellows are further expected to con-tribute to the academic culture of Vienna, e.g., by giving guest lectures and seminars at academ-ic institutions. Senior fellows must be regularly present at the VWI.

Research projects are to focus on a topic relevant to the research interests of the VWI. Within this parameter, applicants are free to choose their own topic, approach, and methodology. Fel-lows will have access to the archives of the Institute. It is expected that fellows will make use of relevant resources from the collection in their research projects. Research results will be the sub-ject of formal fellows’ discussions and will be presented to the wider public at regular intervals. At the end of their stay, fellows are required to submit a research paper which will be peer-reviewed and published in VWI’s e-journal S:I.M.O.N. – Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation.

Senior fellowships are awarded for a duration of minimum five months. Fellows will have a work-ing place and internet access and will receive a monthly stipend of € 2,500.-. In addition, VWI will cover housing costs during the fellowship (up to € 600.- per month) as well as the costs of a round-trip to and from Vienna (coach class airfare or 2nd class train fare). There is an additional one-off payment of € 200.- available for research conducted outside of Vienna or photocopying costs outside of the Institute, where applicable.

Senior fellows will be selected by the International Academic Advisory Board of the VWI.

Applications may be submitted in English or German and must include the following documents:

• completed application form,
• a detailed description of the research project, including the research objectives, an over-view of existing research on the topic and methodology (12,000-character max.),
• a list of publications and a CV with a photo (optional).

Please send your application in electronic format (in one integral *.pdf-file) with the subject head-er “VWI Research Fellowships 2024/25” and submit it by 12 January 2024 to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you do not get confirmation that we have received your proposal, please contact us.

Senior Fellowships 2025/26 at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) invites applications for its senior fellowships for the academic year 2025/2026.

The VWI is an academic institution dedicated to the research and documentation of antisemitism, racism, nationalism and the Holocaust. Conceived and established during Simon Wiesenthal’s lifetime, the VWI receives funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, the Federal Chancellery as well as the City of Vienna. Research at the Institute focuses on the Holocaust in its European context, including its antecedents and its aftermath.

Distinguished scholars who have completed their PhDs, have produced works of scholarship and have long-standing experience working at universities or academic institutions are eligible to apply for a senior fellowship. Senior fellows will be able to conduct research on a topic of their choice in the field of Holocaust studies at the Institute. Beyond the research work itself, the stay at the Institute is intended to encourage communication and scientific exchange among the fellows at the Institute. Senior fellows are expected to support the Institute’s academic work and provide research advice and support to junior fellows. Senior fellows are further expected to contribute to the academic culture of Vienna, e.g., by giving guest lectures and seminars at academic institutions. Senior fellows must be regularly present at the VWI.

Research projects are to focus on a topic relevant to the research interests of the VWI. Within this parameter, applicants are free to choose their own topic, approach, and methodology. Fel-lows will have access to the archives of the Institute. It is expected that fellows will make use of relevant resources from the collection in their research projects. Research results will be the subject of formal fellows’ discussions and will be presented to the wider public at regular intervals. At the end of their stay, fellows are required to submit a research paper which will be peer-reviewed and published in VWI’s e-journal S:I.M.O.N. – Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation.

Senior fellowships are awarded for a duration of minimum five months. Fellows will have a work-ing place and internet access and will receive a monthly stipend of € 2,500.-. In addition, VWI will cover housing costs during the fellowship (up to € 600.- per month) as well as the costs of a round-trip to and from Vienna (coach class airfare or 2nd class train fare).

Senior fellows will be selected by the International Academic Advisory Board of the VWI.

Applications may be submitted in English or German and must include the following documents:

• completed application form,
• a detailed description of the research project, including the research objectives, an over-view of existing research on the topic and methodology (12,000-character max.),
• a list of publications and a CV (optional: with picture).

Please send your application in electronic format (in one integral *.pdf-file) with the subject header “VWI Research Fellowships 2025/26” and submit it by 17 January 2025 to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you do not get confirmation that we have received your proposal, please contact us.

Patrick Bernhard

Senior Fellow (09/2022 – 01/2023)

North Africa and the Holocaust: An Interweaving History of National Socialism and Colonialism

To this day, the question of the connection between colonialism and National Socialism is highly controversial. The project takes a new approach to the problem: Instead of drawing comparisons between the German presence in Africa during the German Empire since the end of the 19th century and the National Socialist extermination policy in Eastern Europe 40 years later, as has been customary in the past, the transnational perspective will now be examined; how the Holocaust initiated and driven by the Nazi state played out on colonial soil in North Africa when the region became an important theatre of the Second World War and the 450,000 Jewish people living there became the focus of persecution.

Conceptually, the work is thus oriented towards approaches of recent works on the Holocaust in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, which analyse the persecution and murder of Jews against the background of pre-existing local conflicts between population groups defined as religious, ethnic or racial and thus embed them in longer temporal contexts.

Patrick Bernhard, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Oslo. His areas of specialisation include collective violence in modernity, the history of the Mediterranean and the relationship between colonialism and fascism. He has recently published on colonial mass violence and the persecution of Jews in North Africa, as well as on Nazi Germany and its interconnections with other empires.

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Andrii Bolianovskyi

Senior Fellow (03/2023 – 08/2023)

Structural Genocide and Instrumentalization of Anti-Semitism: SS, Police, Security Services of the National Socialist Germany, Their Auxiliary Structures and the Holocaust in Ukraine, July 1941-July 1944

The main subject of the project is the occupation police structures of National Socialist Germany in Ukraine 1941–1944. Special attention is paid to the comparative analysis of the use of Ukrainians, Russians, so-called ethnic Germans and persons of other nationalities in the police structures of the Third Reich in the National Socialist occupation policy.

The aim of the research is to examine the organisational structure, leadership, numbers, functions and powers of the German police and their auxiliary forces in the system of preparation and implementation of the Shoah in Ukraine. Numerous previously unknown documents from archives in Ukraine, Germany, Israel, the United States, Poland, Russia and Austria are used for the study for the first time.

Andrii Bolianovskyi, research associate at the Ivan Krypyakewych Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the National Academy of Sciences in Lviv. He specialises in (Western) Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Russia in the first half of the 20th century, and his research interests include Holocaust studies, nationalist movements, mass violence and genocide, interethnic conflicts, and war crimes.

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