Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons^™

[Review Of] The Trial Of A Nazi Doctor: Franz Lucas As Defendant, Opportunist, And Deceiver By Andrew Wisely. New York, Ny: Berghahn Books, 2024. Pp. Xiv+364. Cloth $150.00. Isbn 978-1-80539-530-0., Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

"While we know a lot about the general framework of the trials of Nazi perpetrators, including of specific professional groups, the field of Holocaust, mass violence, and perpetrator studies still needs more in-depth studies on the careers, crimes, and the postwar whereabouts of individual midlevel Nazi officials who had power of life and death over thousands of inmates of Nazi camps and whose lives and careers were not thoroughly investigated by scholars. That is why the book authored by Andrew Wisely examining the case of the SS doctor Franz Bernhard Lucas as a long durée historical biography, is a much-needed …

From The Battlefield To The Archive: Tracing Testimony In Holocaust Memory, Tiana M. Taliep

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis portfolio examines the evolving role of testimony in shaping public memory of World War II and the Holocaust. As the last generation of eyewitnesses passes, societies increasingly rely on preserved, mediated forms of testimony to understand and remember traumatic pasts. Testimony, whether handwritten, oral, visual, or digital, is not a neutral historical record but an interpretive act shaped by cultural, political, and technological forces. This portfolio argues that testimony functions as evidence and expression: it transmits trauma across generations while simultaneously reflecting the changing frameworks through which war and genocide are remembered.

The portfolio explores testimony in personal, …

“These Are Not Ordinary Criminals!” The First War Crimes Trial At The People's Tribunal And Its Implications In Post-Holocaust Romania, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the neglected war crimes trials of Holocaust perpetrators that took place at the People's Tribunal in early postwar Romania, focusing especially on the first trial (the “Macici group”). The article shows that in spite of the political interferences by the new pro-communist regime and the USSR, the Macici group trial in particular, and the first war crimes trials in general, were not Stalinist show trials or fake trials and they sentenced real war criminals and accurately captured Romania's participation in the Holocaust. Unlike the Antonescu group trial – that indicted the former pro-Nazi dictator and his closest …

Restitution Of Jewish Property In Northern Transylvania During The Early Postwar Years, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

The restitution of Jewish property in the multiethnic region of Northern Transylvania faced numerous challenges during the first post-Holocaust years as a result of the complicated wartime history, postwar demographics, legal status, interethnic dynamics, and occasional violence. Having the lowest rate of survival among all Jewish communities in Romania, most of the region’s Jews died during the deportation and did not return to their native places to claim their properties. This impacted the extent of restitution of individual private property. Some of the Aryanized property was restituted to the Jewish survivors or their heirs because the wartime beneficiaries fled the …

The Growing Rift Between Holocaust Scholars Over Israel/Palestine, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

"A chasm has formed between Holocaust scholars concerning Israel/Palestine, deepening immeasurably since 7 October 2023. Unlike previous controversies in the field, the divide is not just historical or methodological; it revolves around academics’ role in the world today, particularly the public stand they choose to take on Palestine/Israel and Zionism. Two main camps have formed. Put reductively, one camp defends Israel, while the other defends Palestinians, although differences between individual scholars within each camp make for more of a spectrum than a clear-cut divide. How, despite a diversity of ideas and foci within each camp, did two academic-political antipodes solidify …

Justice And Restitution In Post-Nazi Romania: Rebuilding Jewish Lives And Communities, 1944-1950, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

On 23rd August 1944, following the collapse of the pro-Nazi dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, Romania changed sides and abandoned the Axis to join the Allies. Justice and Restitution in Post-Nazi Romania explores the hopes, struggles and disappointments of Jewish communities in Romania seeking to rebuild their lives after the Holocaust. Focusing on the efforts of survivors to recuperate rights and property, Stefan Cristian Ionescu demonstrates how the early transitional government enabled short term restitution. However, from 1948, the consolidated communist regime implemented nationalizations which dispossessed many citizens. Jewish communities were disproportionality affected, and real estate and many businesses were lost …

The Rise And Fall Of An Aryanization Bank: The Romanian Credit Institute, 1941–1951, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Probably the most important domestic project of the pro-Nazi Antonescu regime, the policy of Romanianization of the economy had ambitious goals. It aimed to seize Jewish-owned real estate and to redistribute it to “deserving” Romanians, state agencies, and welfare organizations and to increase the share of ethnic Romanian entrepreneurs and skilled employees through purchasing Jewish companies, adopting business and labour restrictions against Jews and “foreigners,” training and funding ethnic Romanian professionals and would-be entrepreneurs, and establishing new companies to displace minority and foreign competitors. While this project looked feasible on paper, in practice, it faced major obstacles, including a lack …

Strategic Rhetorics: Apartheid South Africa/Apartheid Israel: Address To Chapman University’S Gaza Solidarity Encampment, May 2024, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

"On 2 May 2024, Chapman University faculty were asked to participate in a 'faculty speak out' in support of the Chapman Students For Justice In Palestine’s Gaza solidarity encampment. We were invited to speak 'from our expertise and/or personal experiences in a call for a ceasefire in Gaza' (Leitz, 2024). This is a slightly expanded version of what I said[.]"

The Effects Of Trauma On Holocaust Survivors After The War, Natalie Braker

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This paper will examine the effects of trauma among Holocaust survivors after the war, including Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), triggers, nightmares, and anxiety. It will review clinical research by comparing it to the range of experiences of Holocaust survivors as described in videotaped interviews during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Upon reviewing existing literature, it becomes clear that PTSD is life-long for Holocaust survivors. PTSD is a mental health condition triggered by either experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event or a series of events. There are four general types of PTSD symptoms: intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking …

Wikipedia’S Intentional Distortion Of The History Of The Holocaust, Jan Grabowski, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

This essay uncovers the systematic, intentional distortion of Holocaust history on the English-language Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopedia. In the last decade, a group of committed Wikipedia editors have been promoting a skewed version of history on Wikipedia, one touted by right-wing Polish nationalists, which whitewashes the role of Polish society in the Holocaust and bolsters stereotypes about Jews. Due to this group’s zealous handiwork, Wikipedia’s articles on the Holocaust in Poland minimize Polish antisemitism, exaggerate the Poles’ role in saving Jews, insinuate that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo–Bolshevism), blame …

Bibliography For Charlotte Salomon Display, Ruby Blakesleay

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to accompany a display about Charlotte Salomon in September 2022 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University. This display was created in partnership with the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library and the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education.

Pathway To The Shoah: The Protocols, "Jewish Bolshevism", Rosenberg, Goebbels, Ford, And Hitler, David M. Crowe

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

In the dark months after the defeat at Stalingrad in 1943, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party’s strident, virulently anti-Semitic propaganda minister, wrote in his diary that he had “devoted exhaustive study to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” despite the fact that some argued that “they were not suited to present-day propaganda.” After rereading them, he concluded that “we can use them very well,” since The Protocols were “as modern today as they were when published for the first time.” The same day, May 13, 1943, he met with Hitler, who told his propaganda minister that he thought they …

(Re)Presenting Eichmann: One Man, Many Murders, Nina Handjeva-Weller

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis argues that the act of recording the trial of Adolf Eichmann was an interpretation by director Leo Hurwitz, and that at the time it was recorded, and since then, the material has been used by different actors for different purposes. I examined the use made of that material by six individuals/countries: Leo Hurwitz, the accused, director Eyal Sivan, screenwriter Simon Block, West German presenters Joachim Besser and Peter Schier-Gribowsky, and the Israeli government under David Ben-Gurion. To understand the intent of Leo Hurwitz, footage of trial sessions was analyzed as were interviews with him by Professor Susan Slyomovics …

Surviving Through The Lessons Of Sports, Ryan Fabre

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

In the years before World War II, young Jewish athletes in Nazi Germany as well as German-occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia pursued individual and team competitions in the face of state-sponsored persecution. This research project seeks to understand how Jewish athletes organized and competed under the Nazi regime prior to the outbreak of war, and how their prewar experiences of athletic competition and team cooperation shaped their survival in ghettos and concentration camps during the Holocaust. Years before the Nazis took power in Germany, sporting clubs were established within the context Zionist and other Jewish organizations. Young Jews, who originally wanted …

“An Entirely New And Utterly Horrifying Reality”: Jews’ Perceptions Of And Reactions To The Kovno Pogroms, June 22–July 6, 1941, Sarah Markowitz

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis examines a roughly two-week period, between June 22 and July 6, 1941, during which Jews in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, became the primary targets of attacks by local Lithuanians in the midst of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. An analysis of eyewitness accounts reveals that, in comparison to life before June 22, the Kovno pogroms constituted “an entirely new and utterly horrifying reality” for Kovno Jews. While Jews knew some Lithuanians to be antisemitic, there was no previous history of widespread antisemitic violence in the city and positive interethnic relationship were common. Therefore, in the days following …

Review Of Levis Sullam, Simon, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide Of The Jews Of Italy, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

A book review of Simon Levis Sullam's The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy.

The German Plunder And Theft Of Jewish Property In The General Government, David M. Crowe

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Th e German conquest of Poland in the fall of 1939 unleashed the full horror of Nazi racial ideals that saw the gradual evolution of policies that ultimately led to the mass murder of 90 percent of prewar Poland’s 3.3–3.5 million Jews. The geographical center for what the Germans would ultimately call the Final Solution—a plan that Alfred Rosenberg explained meant 'the biological eradication of the entire Jewish people'—was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete (General Government for the Occupied Areas of Poland). Over time, the General Government would become not only Nazi Germany’s principal racial laboratory but also …

Review Of Dumitru, Diana, The State, Antisemitism, And Collaboration In The Holocaust: The Borderlands Of Romania And The Soviet Union And Geissbühler, Simon, Ed., Romania And The Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

Reviews of The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union by Diana Dumitru and Romania and the Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath, edited by Simon Geissbühler.

Legal Tools Instead Of Weapons: Jewish Resistance To The State Takeover Of Urban Real Estate And Businesses During The Antonescu Regime, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"I will investigate the different forms of Jewish resistance to the Antonescu regime, focusing on the use of legalities to bypass the process of Romanianization or Aryanization or state takeover of businesses and urban real estate, a process that aimed to exclude Jews from the local economy and, ultimately, from society.¹ The use of legal tools, mainly sabotage and judicial contestation by tens of thousands of Romanian Jews, was resistance to the Holocaust at its best.² If the seizure of Jewish properties, businesses, and jobs, as envisioned by Romanianization’s social architects, had succeeded, it would have meant starvation, …

Perpetrators, Bystanders, And Rescuers: Popular Attitudes Towards Ottoman Christians During The Armenian Genocide, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

This article explores the popular attitudes of Ottoman Muslims (mainly Turks and Kurds) and foreign residents (German, US, British, so on) towards their Christian (mainly Armenian and Syriac) friends, neighbours, and countrymen during the tragic events that occurred in WWI Ottoman Empire, known in Western scholarship as the Armenian genocide. Overall, the attitudes of Ottoman Muslims and foreign residents towards local Christians fit into the perpetrators/ bystanders/rescuers paradigm and varied from active persecution to indifference, opportunism, and sometimes help and rescue.

The Dynamic Concepts Of Resistance And Collaboration In Post-Holocaust Remembrance. Revisiting The Personal Narratives Of Jewish Survivors From Romania, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines how the Holocaust survivors from Romania represented and reinterpreted the notions of resistance and collaboration. Overall, it seems that the treatment of the Holocaust in post-WWII public opinion and scholarship influenced the way survivors represented the Holocaust. For many years, resistance was equated with ‘heroic’ armed struggle. Gradually, the perspective of the Holocaust began to change, and new interpretations enlarging the concept of resistance have since emerged. The issue of Jewish collaboration with the Nazis has also triggered heated debates. Due to changing social and political contexts, new interpretations focusing on the difficulties and moral dilemmas faced …

Holocaust Si Gulag – Variante Ale Conceptului De Genocid? Intre Dreptul International Si Teoriile Contemporane Privind Violenta Colectiva [Holocaust And Gulag – Varieties Of The Concept Of Genocide? Between International Law And Current Theories Of Collective Violence]., Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the concept of genocide from the point of view international legislation, its applicability to the mass violence phenomena known as Holocaust and Gulag, the difficulties of interpretation and the various solutions proposed by contemporary scholars. It seems that there is a need for a change in the definition of genocide in the international law, in the sense of updating this definition to the political and social developments in the world. The current concept of genocide, regulated by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide poses a series of impediments that makes …

The Boom Of Testimony After Communism: The Voices Of The Holocaust Survivors In Romania: 1989-2005, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

"In this article I intend to deal with the relation between Jewish survivors and Holocaust remembrance in post-communist Romania. Therefore I will investigate the consequences of the Holocaust experience on Jewish survivors from the perspective of how, when and why they remember the catastrophe. My investigation will not particularly focus on the level of the trauma and sufferings they have to live with, but rather on how the political, social and cultural factors have managed to influence the public recollection of the war sufferings and the survivors’ attitude towards Holocaust remembrance. I am interested in discovering mainly the way these …