Katarzyna Nowak

Research Fellow (10/2021-08/2022)

'Recivilising' Refugees: Displaced Eastern Europeans in the Heart of  Divided Europe, 1945-1956

This project will reassess the experiences of Eastern European refugees airbrushed out of the main narratives of World War II displacement. During and after WWII, refugees from Eastern Europe – Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Roma, and others originating from pre-war Poland’s territory – were exposed to the rehabilitation projects drawn up by both the Western Allies and their own national elites. My research will focus on the hitherto unexplored topic of postwar humanitarian aid as a 20th century form of ‘civilising mission’ which aimed to incorporate these displaced Europeans into the communities of the Western world to hasten post-war reconstruction. To add nuance to the understanding of the refugee experience in the early Cold War period, this work integrates a bottom-up perspective with an institutional one by tracing and unearthing archival materials created by refugees from various social and ethnic backgrounds who found themselves in Allied-occupied Germany and Austria.

Katarzyna Nowak is a historian specialising in cultural and social history of Eastern Europe, with a particular interest in refugee and migrant history. During her doctoral and postdoctoral research at the University of Manchester, she focused on Displaced Persons in the early Cold War period in a global perspective. She is currently completing her first monograph, entitled Kingdom of Barracks. Polish Displaced Persons in Allied-occupied Germany and Austria, 1945-1952. She has published on the history of gender, refugees, and diaspora.

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Thomas Chopard

Research Fellow (02/2019–07/2019)

Jewish Migrations across Central and Eastern Europe after the Holocaust. A Transnational Perspective

This project will offer a comprehensive analysis of Jewish mass migrations after the Holocaust, analysing the reasons, trajectories, and legal treatment of Jewish migrants. It will encompass trajectories from their respective homelands to their final departure from Europe, combining a transnational approach with microhistories of this global phenomenon. By studying the implementation and variability of legal and humanitarian categories, it will especially focus on the elaboration of a hospitality policy in Europe for Jewish migrants after the Holocaust through the category of “Jewish Displaced Persons”.

Thomas Chopard holds a PhD from the EHESS in France and was until recently a Jewish studies postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. After focussing on anti-Jewish violence in Central and Eastern Europe between 1914 and 1924, his research now deals with Jewish post-Holocaust migrations.

Vojin Majstorović

Research Fellow (10/2017-07/2018) 

The Red Army and the Holocaust 1939–1948

This project examines the Soviet army’s encounter with the Shoah during and after the Second World War in the western Soviet Union, the Balkans, and East-Central Europe. The study illuminates the Red Army’s policies towards perpetrators, survivors, and their property, the military’s official line about the Holocaust, the use of Nazi crimes against Jews in Soviet war propaganda, the troops’ attitudes to the genocide, and interactions between Jewish survivors and Soviet soldiers. Ultimately, the project aims to illuminate how the Red Army ended the Holocaust on the Eastern Front, and what the Soviet victory meant for survivors, perpetrators, and liberators.

Vojin Majstorović received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2017. His research focusses on Soviet involvement in the Balkans and Central Europe in the 1940s. He has held fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and at the Centre for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. His latest publication is The Red Army in Yugoslavia, 1944–1945, in: Slavic Review 75 (2016) 2, 396-421.

Research Fellowships 2017/2018 at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) invites applications for its research fellowships for the academic year 2017/2018.

The VWI is an academic institution dedicated to the study and documentation of antisemitism, racism and the Holocaust. Conceived and established during Simon Wiesenthal’s lifetime, the VWI receives funding from the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research and Economy 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.

Scholars who have completed their Ph.D. studies and have produced works of scholarship are eligible for receiving a research fellowship. Research 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. Research fellows are expected to support the institute's academic work and provide research adjective and support to Junior fellows. Research 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 fellow’s discussion 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.

Research fellowships are awarded for a duration of between six and eleven months. They will have a work station with computer and internet access and will receive a monthly stipend of € 2,200. In addition, VWI will cover housing costs during the fellowship (up to € 800) 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.

Research 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 overview of existing research on the topic and methodology (12,000 characters max.)
• a list of publications and a CV with a photo, if not already included in application form (optional)

Please send your application in electronic format (if possible in one integral *.pdf-file) with the subject header "VWI Research Fellowships 2017/2018" by 29 January, 2017 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.

Future research fellows are advised to endeavour to finance a part of their fellowship via a stipend from the Stipendienstiftung der Republik Österreich and to submit an application to this end after they have received notification of being awarded their fellowship.

Research Fellowships 2018/2019 at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) invites applications for its research fellowships for the academic year 2018/2019.

The VWI is an academic institution dedicated to the study and documentation of antisemitism, racism, nationalsim and the Holocaust. Conceived and established during Simon Wiesenthal’s lifetime, the VWI receives funding from the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research and Economy 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.

Scholars who have completed their Ph.D. studies and have produced works of scholarship are eligible for receiving a research fellowship. Research 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. Research fellows are expected to support the institute's academic work and provide research adjective and support to Junior fellows. Research 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 fellow’s discussion 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.

Research fellowships are awarded for a duration of between six and eleven months. They will have a work station with computer and internet access and will receive a monthly stipend of € 2,200. In addition, VWI will cover housing costs during the fellowship (up to € 700) 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.

Research 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 overview of existing research on the topic and methodology (12,000 characters max.)
• a list of publications and a CV with a photo, if not already included in application form (optional)

Please send your application in electronic format (if possible in one integral *.pdf-file) with the subject header "VWI Research Fellowships 2018/2019" by 31 January, 2018 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.

Future research fellows are advised to endeavour to finance a part of their fellowship via a stipend from the Stipendienstiftung der Republik Österreich and to submit an application to this end after they have received notification of being awarded their fellowship.

Research Fellowships 2019/2020 at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) invites applications for its research fellowships for the academic year 2019/2020.

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.

Scholars who have completed their Ph.D. studies and have produced works of scholarship are eligible for receiving a research fellowship. Research 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. Research fellows are expected to support the institute's academic work and provide research adjective and support to Junior fellows. Research 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 fellow’s discussion 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.

Research fellowships are awarded for a duration of between six and eleven months. They will have a work station with computer and internet access and will receive a monthly stipend of € 2,200. In addition, VWI will cover housing costs during the fellowship (up to € 700) 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.
Research 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 overview of existing research on the topic and methodology (12,000 characters max.)
• a list of publications and a CV with a photo, if not already included in application form (optional)

Please send your application in electronic format (in one integral *.pdf-file) with the subject header “VWI Research Fellowships 2019/2020” by 13 January 2019 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.

Future research fellows are advised to endeavour to finance a part of their fellowship via a stipend from the Stipendienstiftung der Republik Österreich and to submit an application to this end after they have received notification of being awarded their fellowship.

Research Fellowships 2020/2021 at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)

The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI) invites applications for its research fellowships for the academic year 2020/2021.

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.

Scholars who have completed their Ph.D. studies and have produced works of scholarship are eligible for receiving a research fellowship. Research 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. Research fellows are expected to support the institute's academic work and provide research adjective and support to Junior fellows. Research 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 fellow’s discussion 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.

Research fellowships are awarded for a duration of between six and eleven months. They will have a work station with computer and internet access and will receive a monthly stipend of € 2,200. In addition, VWI will cover housing costs during the fellowship (up to € 700) 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.
Research 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 overview of existing research on the topic and methodology (12,000 characters max.)
• a list of publications and a CV with a photo, if not already included in application form (optional)

Please send your application in electronic format (in one integral *.pdf-file) with the subject header “VWI Research Fellowships 2020/2021” by 12 January 2020 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.

Future research fellows are advised to endeavour to finance a part of their fellowship via a stipend from the Stipendienstiftung der Republik Österreich and to submit an application to this end after they have received notification of being awarded their fellowship.

Sarah Cramsey

Research Fellow (12/2016-08/2017)

Uncertain Citizenship Jewish Belonging and the ‘Ethnic Revolution’ in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1918–1948

Usually, the creation of the State of Israel is cast a story that begins with Herzl and is brought to fulfilment by the Holocaust. Uncertain Citizenship: Jewish Belonging and the ‘Ethnic Revolution’ in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1917-1947, considers the resolution of questions concerning Jewish political belonging in Europe not as the endpoint of a well-known history but the unexpected result of transnational intellectual debates, diplomatic manoeuvrings, demographic pressures and policies at local, state and international levels. The project will explore questions of Jewish ethnicity and citizenship from the perspective of the three decades before Israel’s Independence and seeks answers from various East Central European actors of Jewish and non-Jewish background. In sum, I show how the process by which east central Europeans “solved” questions of Jewish citizenship offers a synecdoche for the history of the unprecedented nationalisation of space in the region more generally. Arguably, the overall disentangling of populations in post-WWII east central Europe demanded the simultaneous embrace of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as a territorial nationalist project.

Sarah A. Cramsey is a Professor of Practice of Jewish Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans. She received her doctorate in history in Berkeley as well as degrees from Oxford University and the College of William & Mary. She has received funding from the NSEP Boren Scholarship Program, the Fulbright Program, the Mellon Foundation, the Institute for International Education, the American Council of Learned Societies and the German Historical Institute to complete research in the Czech Republic, Poland, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States.

Mark Lewis

Research Fellow (10/2016-06/2017)

The History of the Vienna Political Police. Continuities and Discontinuities, 1914–1945

This research project investigates continuities and discontinuities in the operations and mind-set of the Vienna political police through four political eras: during the First World War, in the First Republic, in the ‘Ständestaat’ the so-called Corporative State 1934–1938, and during the Nazi period. Four hypotheses are here proposed: 1) the police bureaucracy was at first politically subordinate to the state and later became an independent power centre with few legal restrictions; 2) the police started with certain concepts of ‘suspicious people’ and ‘state enemies’ and subsequently expanded these in each era; 3) their cultural prejudices against Slavs, Jews, Roma, and women increased during these eras; and 4) their cultural practices of technical expertise and thorough investigation were replaced by a dependence on political reliability and the use of violence. This project intends to create a database of the social background and the activities of Vienna Gestapo members to examine these hypotheses.

Mark Lewis is Associate Professor of European History at the City University of New York - College of Staten Island. His research interests include the history of international criminal law and the history of the political police in Central Europe and the Balkans. He is the author of The Birth of the New Justice: The Internationalization of Crime and Punishment, 1919-1950, Oxford 2016.

Irina Marin

Research Fellow (10/2016-08/2017)

Peasant Violence and Antisemitism in the Triple Frontier Region between Austria-Hungary, Tsarist Russia and Romania, 1880–1914

This project examines the legal status and general fate of the Jewish population in the states around the triple frontier from a comparative, transnational perspective, in connection with the episodes of peasant unrest that punctuated the history of the region at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. It analyses the place occupied by the Jewish population in processes of economic modernisation as well as their discursive conceptualisation within nation-building processes.

Irina Marin received her PhD from University College London and is currently working on a postdoctoral project on the interconnection between peasant violence and antisemitism in Eastern Europe. Her research so far has focussed on identity politics in the Habsburg Empire, frontier studies, and social conflict.