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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