EVENT: On 8 October, Professor Esra Özyürek delivers the annual Holocaust and Genocide Studies lecture in Amsterdam. She will talk about her book Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany. More info and registration: www.niod.nl/en/activitie...

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

On 2 May, I moderate this event on Sieg Maandag in Amsterdam. It marks the 80th anniversary of the famous photograph that documented Maandag’s liberation at Bergen-Belsen. The event focuses on life after trauma, violence and loss. You can attend (online) by signing up here: spui25.nl/programma/si...

#WORKSHOP | On Thursday and Friday, @laurienvastenhout.bsky.social hosts the workshop 'The Holocaust in the Netherlands: New Insights and Approaches'. In 2026, contributions made during the workshop will be published in Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah: www.memorialdelashoah.org/archives-et-....

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…

Congrats to former #SaulKagan Fellows @laurienvastenhout.bsky.social and Jan Lanicek for their new @wallsteinverlag.bsky.social book! With contributions by former Fellows incl @stefanc-ionescu.bsky.social and committee member @andrealoew.bsky.social www.wallstein-verlag.de/978383535410... #Holocaust

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!

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 🙏🏼

Promoveren bij het NIOD? Mooie vacature voor een promotieplek waarin je onderzoek doet naar de bezettingspolitiek en de Jodenvervolging in Enschede 🇳🇱. Spread the word! vacatures.knaw.nl/job/Amsterda... @niodamsterdam.bsky.social

Ik zoek een stagiair voor mijn project! Specifiek iemand die goed Frans 🇫🇷 leest. Spread the word 🙏🏼

To all documentary makers, tv and radio hosts, journalists, and others: please never ask a woman to contribute to your project because you “need a young person and a woman” next to all the older, white guys you already asked weeks or months ago. Not the first time this happened to me.

Jammer dat mijn naam consistent misspelt wordt (“Vastenhoud”), maar wel mooie aandacht voor de Nederlandse vertaling van mijn boek over “Joodse raden” in West-Europa historiek.net/de-joodse-ra... @historiek.bsky.social @niodamsterdam.bsky.social

The forced removal of “mixed” children from their mothers between 1948 and 1953 in Congo was traumatic and inhumane. These practices found their origin with Belgium’s 🇧🇪 King Léopold. The Belgian colonial state has now been condemned for crimes against humanity..👇🏼 www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

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.

The word is out! My book 'Between Community and Collaboration' received the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. I feel extremely honoured & am in very good company. More info: www.niod.nl/en/news/laur...

‘Laurien Vastenhout’s “Between Community and Collaboration” is a much-needed addition to the study of the Holocaust in Western Europe.’ Very happy with this wonderful review of my book👇🏼📕 academic.oup.com/hgs/advance-...

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…

“In zekere zin is Vastenhouts historiserende studie een ode aan de internationaal vergelijkende benadering: alle nieuwe inzichten […] zijn daaraan te danken.” Zeer blij met de prachtige recensie van mijn boek 📕 in de BMGN / Low Countries Historical Review: bmgn-lchr.nl/article/view...

Alex Dancyg wurde am 7. Oktober 2023 von der Hamas verschleppt. In Yad Vashem in Jerusalem war er ein Kollege unserer Direktorin Debbie Hartmann: "Wir sind mit unserem Herzen und in Gedanken bei Alex, bei seiner Familie, seinen Freundinnen und Freunden, Kolleginnen und Kollegen ...1/3

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

New here! Short intro: Holocaust historian, published my book on “Jewish Councils” (CambridgeUP) last year, researcher at NIOD Amsterdam, teaching and coordinating MA “Holocaust and Genocide Studies” at UvA Amsterdam, new project on “mixed” families during WW2 (funded by Dutch Research Council).