2016-2017         DRS Point Fellow, Centre for Area Studies, FU Berlin

2015                  Visiting Research Fellow, Yad Vashem, Israel (Postdoctoral)

2014-2015         Academic Visitor, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
                          (research sponsor: Prof. Nicholas Stargardt)

2013                  Junior Visiting Research Associate, Modern European History Research
                          Centre, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
                          (research sponsor: Prof. Nicholas Stargardt)

2012                  Junior Visiting Scholar, Cantemir Institute, Faculty of History, University
                          of Oxford (research sponsor: Prof. David Rechter)

Education:

2015                  PhD in Social Sciences, University of Warsaw (Poland)

2005-2008         MA in European Studies , University of Exeter (UK)

2002-2007         MA: Institute of Sociology, Jagellonian University (Poland)

Involvement in research projects:

2013-2014         Project leader, researcher in project: Non-existent Home: the Return of
                          Holocaust Survivors to a Medium-sized City in Poland (1945-1950),
                          University of Warsaw (NCN 2013/08/T/HS6/00037) (full-time)

2011-2013         Project leader, researcher in project: Re-construction of Everyday Life: 
                          Community of a District City Right After the War, Kalisz 1945-1948, 
                          University of Warsaw (NCN 2011/01/N/HS6/02279) (part-time)

2010-2013         Researcher in project: History of Hermann and Noel Fields, Prof. Kyle A.
                          Cuordileone, City University of New York (part-time)

2009                  Researcher in project: Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe,
                          1944-1956, Anne Applebaum (London School of Economics and
                           Political Science) (part-time)

Title of research project:

Agency Through Justice: Holocaust Survivors and Post-War Trials in Poland 1944-1956

Focus of research:

Social and cultural history of Poland in the 20th century

Keywords:

Poland, Holocaust, survivors, agency, post-war justice

Regional focus:

Poland, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, East-Central Europe

Description:

My new project examines Jewish Holocaust survivors working to reclaim their agency immediately after the WW II in Poland. To shed more light on this process it uses the lens of post-war trials. I argue that transitional justice brought upon Nazi war criminals and their local collaborators provides unique insight into the lives of survivors, their communities and Polish society.

I concentrate on witnesses, i.e. Holocaust survivors who testified during the post-war trials. The existing scholarship on the other hand most often focuses on the defendants and their crimes, or the legal process itself. My project also looks at the sources from post-war trials in a new way: as documents on lives of those testifying in courtrooms. It obtains a “view from within” to the community of survivors and uses an empathetic interpretation of sources. I follow the approach of grounded theory used in social sciences which means that my study remains open to new analytical categories emerging during the research.

This project is based on variety of primary sources created by institutions (courts and investigators) and private individuals.

Monograph:

2016     Dom, którego nie ma [Non-existent Home], Wydawnictwo Czarne (forthcoming)

Articles:

2014     ‘Recently discovered documents regarding the history of the Kielce Pogrom: the 
             Statements of Henryk Błaszczyk and Gerszon Lewkowicz from July 1946’ (in Polish) 
             in: Kwartalnik Historii Żydów / Jewish History Quarterly, nr 2, 2014

2014     ‘”We Would Like the House not to Remain in the Hands of Strangers”. Restitution of
             Jewish private properties in the Polish Courts (Kalisz and Radom, 1945-1948)’ (in
             Polish) in: Klucze i kasa. O mieniu żydowskim w Polsce pod okupacją niemiecką i 
             we wczesnych latach powojennych, 1939-1950, eds. Jan Grabowski, Dariusz Libionka,
             Polish Centre for Holocaust Research, Warsaw

2013     ‘Homecomers: Jews and non-Jews in Post-war Radom’ (in English) in: Kwartalnik
             Historii Żydów / Jewish History Quarterly, nr 2, 2013

2012     ‘Calling Fears’ (in Polish) in: Kultura Liberalna, nr 193, 2012

2011     ‘Snapshots from People’s Republic of Poland. The Image of Communist Past in the  
             Contemporary Polish Cinema’ (in Polish) in: Kultura i Społeczeństwo, nr 4, 2010

2011     ‘The First Wave of Comic Narrations about the Polish Peoples’ Republic after 1989 and
             what comes next?’ (in Polish) in: Historia w kulturze współczesnej. Niekonwencjonalne 
             podejścia do przeszłości, eds. Piotr Witek, Mariusz Mazur, Ewa Solska, UMCS, Lublin

2010     ‘Contemporary Popular Culture and the History of PRL: The Image of Communist Past 
             in the Comic Books and Hip-hop Songs’(in Polish) in: Historyka. Studia
             Metodologiczne, nr 40, 2010

Reviews:

2016     Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, Beyond Violence. Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia,
             1944-48, Cambridge University Press 2014(in English), in: Pol-Int (https://www.pol-
             int.org/en/publications/beyond-violence-jewish-survivors-poland-and-slovakia-
             1944#r3571)

2013     Christian Ingrao, The SS Dirlewanger Brigade: The History of the Black Hunters 
             (in Polish), in: Historyka. Studia Metodologiczne, nr 42, 2012

2013     Jean-Yves Potel, The End of Innocence: Poland towards its Jewish Past (in Polish), 
             in: Historyka. Studia Metodologiczne, nr 42, 2012

2011     Jacek Leociak, Rescuing. Accounts of Poles and Jews (in   Polish), in: Kultura 
             i Społeczeństwo, nr 4, 2010