2020 Organising Team
Agathi Bazani studied German language and literature at the German Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2011-2015). She completed her MA thesis in Language and Culture in the German speaking area at the same university (2015-2018). She received a research scholarship at University of Vechta, Germany (2017) in order to write her master thesis, titled The Memory of the Shoah in Thessaloniki in contemporary Greek and German literature. She has presented papers at international conferences and workshops. She is a member of the research group Mnemosyne of the German Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and has translated selected texts that refer to “Memory Cultures” (Erinnerungskulturen) written by Aleida Assmann into Greek. She teaches German as A Foreign Language and is planning to start her doctoral research. She was a speaker at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
Ulrike Löffler studied history, English language and literature as well as pedagogy in Jena. During her university years, she worked as teaching assistant and student aid in the field of 20th century history. She spent the academic year 2012/2013 at the University of California, Berkeley as Visiting Research Scholar studying the university’s contemporary reactions towards National Socialism. From 2014 to 2016 she was on the academic staff of the chair of Public History in Jena. Since March 2017 she has been a research associate and doctoral candidate at Europäisches Kolleg Jena. In her PhD project she investigates the educational work of German NS memorial sites since the 1970s and 1980s. She was a participant at the 22nd workshop in Budapest (2017) and a speaker at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
Robert Obermair is a Salzburg based historian. He studied history and English language and literature in Salzburg and Leicester. After the completion of his MA, he worked as a research and teaching assistant at the Pedagogical University of Salzburg. He has been involved in national and international research projects in the field of contemporary history. He currently works as a history educator for the Salzburg Museum, as a programme coordinator for “erinnern.at” and teaches at the University of Salzburg. In addition, he is involved in various research projects related to the period of National Socialism and the post-war period. In his PhD project he analyses the connection between politics and science in the years of National Socialist rule based on the Austrian minister for education Oswald Menghin and the networks he was involved with. He was a participant at the 21st workshop in Aix-en-Provence (2016) and a speaker at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
Christian Schmittwilken studied Scandinavian Studies and History in Münster, Trondheim and Berlin. From 2015 to 2016, he worked as scientific trainee at the Topography of Terror Foundation in Berlin and curated the exhibition “Mass Shootings. The Holocaust from the Baltic to the Black Sea 1941–1944”. Since January 2017, he has been a doctoral researcher at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. His thesis investigates the activities of the German offices of the commanding officers of the Security Police and the Security Service (Kommandeure der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD) in the Reich Commissariat Ukraine 1941-1944. He was a speaker at the 21st workshop in Aix-en-Provence (2016) and a participant at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
Maximilian Schulz studied Medieval and Modern History in Leipzig (Germany) and Scandinavian Area Studies in Bergen (Norway). During his studies, he worked at the Forum of Contemporary History and at the Stasi Records Agency in Leipzig. The results of his Master thesis about the Buchenwald subcamp Leipzig-Thekla informed the exhibition at the Leipzig Nazi Forced Labour Memorial (2015) and were published in 2016 (Detlev Brunner/ Alfons Kenkmann: Leipzig im Nationalsozialismus. Beiträge zu Zwangsarbeit, Verfolgung und Widerstand). 2017 he lectured on National Socialist Concentration Camps as a research associate at the History Department at Leipzig University. Currently, he is a Hans-Böckler-Foundation scholarship holder. For his PhD thesis at Leipzig University he examines the Erla-Maschinenwerke GmbH Leipzig and its’ system of subcamps between 1943 and 1945. He was a speaker at the 22nd workshop in Budapest (2017) and a participant at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
Laura Stöbener is a trained publisher’s assistant. She is studying history and art history at the Humboldt University Berlin and is currently working on her B.A. thesis on the discrimination and persecution of Sinti and Roma as a transnational continuity in Belgium and Germany. She has worked at Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper, as well as Kazerne Dossin, a memorial and museum for Holocaust and Human Rights in Belgium. From 2014 to 2019 she worked at Germany Close Up, a transatlantic encounter program. Since April 2019 she works at the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, where she researches upcoming exhibition projects. She was a participant at the 22nd workshop in Budapest (2017) and a speaker at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
Florian Zabransky is a doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex. He was awarded the Clemens N. Nathan Scholarship for his research on male Jewish intimacy during the Holocaust. He studied Sociology at Goethe-University Frankfurt, Sapienza – Università di Roma and Hamburg University. He also worked at institutions commemorating the Holocaust, such as the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Site near Hamburg and the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main. His academic interests include history of sexuality, history of emotions, Nazi concentration camps and the history of antisemitism. He was a participant at the 22nd workshop in Budapest (2017) and a speaker at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
Jonathan Zisook is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and current Visiting Research Fellow in Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He recently served as a Fulbright Fellow in History and Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he conducted dissertation research on the politics of Holocaust memory and Jewish culture in contemporary Poland and Central-Eastern Europe. Jonathan previously completed an MA in Modern Jewish History and a BA in Sociology at Yeshiva University. He was a speaker at the 22nd workshop in Budapest (2017) and a participant at the 23rd workshop in Thessaloniki (2019).
