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Lukas Meissel is a historian and post doc research fellow at The Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a post-doctoral grant from the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, Paris. His post-doc project is called “Photographic Testimonies. An Integrated Visual History of Survival and Resistance”. He wrote his PhD thesis about SS photography in concentration camps at the University of Haifa, Israel, and earned BA and MA degrees in history and contemporary history at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Prior to his studies in Israel, he worked as an archivist in the Jewish Community of Vienna and in various Holocaust studies and education projects. He received fellowships and grants in Israel, the USA, Germany, Austria and France, as well as the Herbert-Steiner-Anerkennungspreis 2015 and the Theodor-Körner-Preis 2021 awards. His research, lectures and teaching focus on Holocaust and Genocide studies/education, visual history, US-Israeli-Austrian relations, and antisemitism. He has published articles in international peer-reviewed journals, an award-winning monograph about perpetrator photography in the Mauthausen concentration camp and edited volumes about Holocaust studies and education.

Selected publications:

Monographs

PhD thesis (publication in preparation)
Beyond the Perpetrators’ Gaze. An Integrated Visual History of Nazi Concentration Camps, p. 401.

Mauthausen im Bild. Fotografien der Lager-SS. Entstehung – Motive – Deutungen (Vienna: edition Mauthausen, 2019), p. 132.
[Mauthausen in Images. Photographs of the Camp-SS. Origin - Motives – Interpretations]

Peer-reviewed articles

Capturing Bolshevism: SS Photographs of Soviet POWs at Concentration Camps. A Case Study, in: S:I.M.O.N. SHOAH: INTERVENTION. METHODS. DOCUMENTATION, vol. 9/2022/No.1, 58-70.

The Innocent Perpetrators: The Portrayal of ‘German Victimhood’ in: Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter (Generation War) (2013), in: The Journal of Holocaust Research, formerly Dapim, 36:2-3, 2022, 146-163.

Igraszki z symboliką Zagłady. Seria gier komputerowych „Wolfenstein” jako studium przypadku cyfrowych reprezentacji Zagłady, in: Studia i Materialy / Holocaust Studies and Materials vol 17, 2021, 329-357 (with Johannes Breit)
[Playing with Holocaust symbols. The video game franchise Wolfenstein as a case study for digital Holocaust representations.]

The Visual Memory of Mauthausen, in: Contemporary Austrian Studies, vol. 30/2021, A Visual History of Austria (Günter Bischof, ed., Martin Kofler, Hans Petschar, guest ed.), 161-181.

Not “How Was It Possible,” but “Who Made It Possible”: The Topic of Perpetrators in Holocaust Education in Austria, in: Wendy Lower, Lauren Faulkner Rossi (ed.), Lessons and Legacies of the Holocaust XII. New Directions in Holocaust Research and Education (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2017), 406-428.

Peer-reviewed journal volume

zeitgeschichte, volume 49, issue 2 (2022), Fotoalben als Quellen der Zeitgeschichte (ed. with Vida Bakondy, Eva Tropper, Adina Seeger),
therein: SS-Fotoalben als visuelle Leistungsnachweise und Legitimationsberichte, 185-207.
[Volume: Photo Albums as Historical Sources in Contemporary History, article: SS photo albums as visual performance records and legitimizing reports]

Edited volumes

Aufregende Forschung. Zeitgeschichtliche Interventionen von Hans Safrian (Vienna: new academic press, 2022) (with Jutta Fuchshuber).
[Unsettling Research. Contemporary Historical Interventions by Hans Safrian]

Orientierungen, Irritationen. Studienfahrten an Erinnerungsorte der NS-Verbrechen (Vienna: LIT, 2021) (ed. by Verein GEDENKDIENST with Till Hilmar, Olivia Kaiser, Lena Krainz, Laurin Neidhart and Magdalena Rest).
[Orientations, Irritations. Study Trips to Places of Remembrance for National Socialist Crimes]

 

Ohad is interested in the interface between classical Hebrew and Halacha literature and German culture. He studied for his first degree in the Department of German Literature and Talmud at the Hebrew University and his second degree in the Department of the History of Israel at the Hebrew University. He writes his research work on the Halachic Responsa literature in the Weimar Republic.

Ohad is a fellow of the MA HONORS PROGRAM 2022/23 of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies at the Humanities of the Hebrew University.

Yuval Rivlin is a post doc fellow at the History Department/Koebner Minerva Center of the Hebrew University and also serves as the Managing Editor of  the online publication of the Koebner Center "Slil – Journal for History, Film and Television".
He earned his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2019. He wrote his PhD study under the guidance of Prof. Richard I. Cohen on the subject: “Traditional and Modern Identity in the Films by Jewish Immigrants to Hollywood” (1933 – 1942). The book adaptation of his doctoral dissertation – "From Berlin to Hollywood" - won the "Shlomo and Bela Bartal Prize" for 2021 and will be published in 2023 by Magnes Press/Koebner-Minerva Center.
Teaches History and film at a variety of institutes including The Hadassah Academic College and Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts.

Selected Publications
Yuval Rivlin, The Mouse that Roared: Jewish Identity in American and Israeli Cinema. Jerusalem: Tobypress 2009.

Matthias Schmidt studied Theology, Jewish Studies and History in Berlin, Heidelberg and Jerusalem. Since 1989 he is the administrative director and research coordinator of the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem being responsible for budgets/project funds, personnel/fellowships, national and international scientific cooperation and guest lecture programs.

Having received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University in 2004 for a thesis on ethnic identities in the Hellenistic period, he is currently also an adjunct lecturer for Ancient History at the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights at the History Department of the Hebrew University, and works as a freelance translator for a range of academic publications.

Publications
Books (editorial)
Susanne Düwell, Matthias Schmidt (eds.), Narrative der Shoah. Repräsentationen der Vergangenheit in Historiographie, Kunst und Politik, Paderborn München: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 2002.
Yotam Hotam, Matthias Schmidt, Noam Zadoff (eds.), History as vocation. A Collection of essays in honor of Moshe Zimmermann on the occasion of his 60th Birthday, Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2005.
 

Articles
“Marcus Tullius Cicero Recontexualized: Latin Political Writings in Cultural Exchange and Individual Crisis”, in: Dan Diner, Gideon Reuveni, Yfaat Weiss (eds.), Deutsche Zeiten. Geschichte und Lebenswelt. Festschrift zur Emeritierung von Moshe Zimmermann, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 2012, 41-60.
"Von Schuld und Sühne, Versagen und Erneuerung: Zu Theorie und Praxis christlicher Annäherung an den Staat Israel", in: --, Susanne Düwell (eds.), Narrative der Shoah. Repräsentationen der Vergangenheit in Historiographie, Kunst und Politik, Paderborn München: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2002, 263-277.
"Staat Israel und Heiliges Land: Der Papstbesuch als Testfall eines christlich-jüdischen Dialogs", in: Wolfram Kinzig, Cornelia Kück (ed.), Judentum und Christentum zwischen Konfrontation und Faszination. Ansätze zu einer neuen Beschreibung jüdisch-christlicher Beziehungen (Judentum und Christentum Bd. 11), Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 165-179.
 

Reviews
"Arno Mayer, Der Krieg als Kreuzzug. Das Deutsche Reich, Hitlers Wehrmacht und die 'Endlösung'", in: ASCHKENAS. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden, 1/1992.
"Bertold Brecht, Flüchtlingsgespräche (hebr. Translation)", in: Ha Aretz (Tarbut we-Sifrut), 27.12.1996.
"Joachim Schlör: Tel Aviv - Vom Traum zur Stadt", in: HaAretz (Tarbut we-Sifrut), 28.3.1997.
"Leo Perutz, Die dritte Kugel - Gustav Meyrink, Der Golem (hebr. translations)", in: HaAretz (Tarbut we-Sifrut), 3.1.1998.
"Doron Mendels, Identity, Religion and Historiography. Studies in Hellenistic History", in: HaAretz (Tarbut we-Sifrut), 3.7.1998.

Book Translations (into German)
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Gespräche über Gott und die Welt mit Michael Shashar, Frankfurt am Main: Dvora Verlag, 1990.
Zvi Tauber, Befreiung und das "Absurde". Studien zur Emanzipation des Menschen bei Herbert Marcuse, Stuttgart: Bleicher Verlag, 1994.
Gideon Greif, ‘Wir weinten tränenlos….’ - Augenzeugenberichte der jüdischen „Sonderkommandos“ in Auschwitz, Köln Weimar Berlin: Böhlau Verlag, 1995.
Moshe Zimmermann, Die deutschen Juden 1914-1945 (Enzyklopädie Deutscher Geschichte), München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1997.
Oded Heilbronner, Die Achillesferse des deutschen Katholizismus. Der Schwarzwald als Fallstudie für den Aufstieg der NSDAP, Stuttgart: Bleicher-Verlag, 1998.
Yfaat Weiss, Deutsche und polnische Juden vor dem Holocaust. Jüdische Identität zwischen Staatsbürgerschaft und Ethnizität 1933-1940, München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000.
Gilad Margalit, Die Nachkriegsdeutschen und "ihre Zigeuner". Die Behandlung der Sinti und Roma im Schatten von Auschwitz, Berlin: Metropol, 2001 (Übersetzung mit David Aijchenrand).
 

 

 

Tibor Shalev-Schlosser works at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Koebner Minerva Center .

Academic Qualifications:

1985            B.A. in Philosophy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1985-7         Research Assistant, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

1987/8         Philosophy Teacher at the “Leyada” High school, Jerusalem

1988/9         Studies and Research in Heidelberg University, Germany (scholarship)

1990           M.A in Philosophy with Thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

2014           M.A. in Political Science, University of Haifa

2014           Graduate, National Defense College, Israel

2014           Research Student (PhD), Hebrew University, Jerusalem

2020           Ph.D in History, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

He taught undergraduate and graduate courses on German literature, cinema, and culture of the twentieth and twenty-first century, including as guest professor at UCLA, Freie Universität Berlin, Albert Ludwig Universität Freiburg, University of Oxford, and Hebrew University. He has published three monographs and edited or co-edited twenty-eight volumes or special issues of journals as well as numerous articles, book chapters, and interviews in his areas of expertise. He is also a translator of, among others, Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Müller.

Avner Sorek is a MA student at the History Department, writing a thesis under the supervision of Prof. Ofer Ashkenazi about the historiography of the 20th century in Germany. 

 

Nathanel Stawski is an MA student at the History Department, writing a thesis under the supervision of Prof. Ofer Ashkenazi about the relationship between the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten and the Zionist Federation of Germany. He is an undergraduate of Middle Eastern Studies, and the Core Humanities Program at Shalem College.