Very proud of Renna Elfrink, former student of Holocaust and Genocide Studies @niodamsterdam.bsky.social. Her MA thesis has just been published (in Greek! 🇬🇷).

Apart from hundreds of letters, I found many photos of Jews in “mixed” relationships or marriages in the 1930s and 1940s. Their stories have largely been untold. These are Salomon Ringer and his fiancé Alice Vandormael in 1942. Five weeks after the liberation of Belgium 🇧🇪, they finally got married.

Last week, I organised a workshop on “mixed couples” during conflict at @niodamsterdam.bsky.social. With contributions on Haiti 🇭🇹, Rwanda,🇷🇼 Burundi 🇧🇮,Ivory Coast 🇨🇮, India 🇮🇳, Germany 🇩🇪, Austria 🇦🇹, Ukraine 🇺🇦, the Ottoman Empire, and the Netherlands 🇳🇱. Discussed themes included love, emotions…

Out now! 📕 The edited volume on “Jewish Councils” in Nazi Europe. Very happy to see this in print. Thank you @leibniz-ifz.bsky.social, @wallsteinverlag.bsky.social, all authors and my wonderful co-editor Jan Lanicek!

…and in front of the uni building: a memorial to the more than 65,000 Jews in Austria murdered between 1938-1945.

Moved to Vienna for a full year to work on my project on “mixed” families in an international research group at the @univie.ac.at. Happy to be here and get some archival work done 🙏🏼

Back on @bsky.app :-) and back in Europe after hosting a seminar in Los Angeles🇺🇸 on “mixed” families during the #Holocaust. More on this new project (funded by Dutch research Council) soon!

And now my book is also reviewed in French 🇫🇷👇🏼

Another great and generous review of my book. Thanks @andrealoew.bsky.social and @fritzbauerinstitut.bsky.social: “Diese Dynamiken in einem überaus komplexen Kontext
herauszuarbeiten ist Laurien Vastenhout auf exzellente Art und Weise gelungen. Ihre Untersuchung setzt Maßstäbe, wenn es um…

Happy to have contributed to the edited volume “If this is a Woman: Studies on Gender and Women in the Holocaust” & with the great review of my article. For the full review, see: www.degruyter.com/journal/key/...

Our MA students (#Holocaust and #Genocide studies) working hard on their papers/thesis during the monthly “Shut up and Write” session at NIOD Amsterdam.

It was great to hear Natalia Aleksiun talk about #Jewish physicians, Jewish medical networks, and rescue strategies in #Nazi occupied Poland. We had a wonderful conversation that I’m sure will be continued.

This is happening this afternoon and I can’t wait to talk with my dear friend and colleague Natalia about her fascinating project. There are still some seats available👇🏼

In these particularly difficult times, it was great to see many dear friends and colleagues again at the “Lessons & Legacies” conference. Of course, our dear Israeli colleagues were greatly missed. Apart from our own panel on ‘Contested Intimacies’, I had the privilege…

Screening of the “Dmitriev Affair” - a very powerful and moving documentary on the work of Memorial (awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2022), and Yuri Dmitriev. He exposed mass graves from the Stalin era, was arrested and now serves 13 years in a penal colony.

This was the last session of my “Topics in Holocaust Studies” course. Students presented their work and we talked about war photography and #atrocity images. The weeks have gone by too fast. Can’t wait to read their papers.

It was great speaking at the Wiener Holocaust Library last week. I argued, among other things, that the persistent focus on the different murder % of Jews in W-Europe during the #Holocaust has led to oversimplification. Catching up with fantastic colleagues was ❤️. Until next time! 🇬🇧

Reading this fascinating and very well-written book in “preparation” for my talk at the Wiener Library in London next month. Starts with a very powerful quote by Alfred Wiener “I’m prepared to forget, as long as everyone else remembers.” #Holocaust