Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies

Big news at the Zucker/Goldberg Center this week!

We can now share that Dr. Tamar Aizenberg will join us in the fall as the next Rose Mibab and Carl Goldberg Postdoctoral Fellow in Holocaust Studies. She will take over as the wonderful Dr. Hana Green heads to TAMU-San Antonio to take up her new position there as assistant professor of history.

Dr. Tamar Aizenberg is a scholar of modern Jewish history, Holocaust history and memory, and oral history. Her current work is an experiential history of the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and the grandchildren of Holocaust perpetrators—the third generation—in Austria, Germany, and the United States. She examines the development of these grandchildren as distinct groups, the ways their families narrate their histories, and how members of the third generation explore family history on their own terms. Tamar recently completed her PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, where she also co-taught an undergraduate course on the history of antisemitic stereotypes.

While we are very sad to see her go, we wish Hana all the best and and extend hearty welcome to Tamar!

Check out the latest review of "Survival at Treblinka" by Chad S.A. Gibbs:

"Slim and read­able, Sur­vival at Tre­blin­ka will inter­est schol­ars of the Holo­caust as well as laypeo­ple curi­ous to under­stand how hero­ism takes shape and takes flight in the most des­per­ate of circumstances."

https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/survival-at-treblinka-geography-gender-and-social-networks-in-jewish-resistance

Chad Gibbs, University of Wisconsin Press, Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies

This week, Professor Gibbs traveled to the University of Nevada-Reno to give a talk on his new book. We are incredibly thankful to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for sponsoring this event and to Professor James McSpadden for the invitation!

Very proud of our students who presented at FeMo this year! Kannon Green, Bella Sessoms, and Liv Olson presented their work on women's testimonies of the Holocaust and Chloe Ann Duncan presented her poster on women's rights and fashion in the Weimar era.

Well done, all!

Chloe Ann Duncan, the Zucker/Goldberg Center Research Assistant for the last two years, is graduating this spring. Just this month, she has completed her bachelor's essay, presented her work at Expo and FeMo, AND gained acceptance to the MLIS program at the University of South Carolina.

While we will miss Chloe Ann around the office, we are so excited for her as she heads off to get her master's degree and become a librarian!

Well done, Chloe Ann!

What a month so far!

The Zucker/Goldberg Center supported five student posters at the CofC Expo, one student poster at FeMo, a further student panel presentation at the FeMo Conference, published our yearly special section on the Holocaust in the Post and Courier (to great acclaim), saw the official publication of "Survival at Treblinka" by Professor Gibbs, a new article in The Conversation, a further article in the "Holocaust Remembered" magazine, and supported graduating students receiving awards for their work in Holocaust studies at the Spring Soiree.

Welcome, Dr. Natale!

Join us in welcoming out newest member of the Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program, Marisa Natale!

Natale is a historian who specializes in the social and legal construction of gender, childhood, and family during the Palestine Mandate. Her research and lived experience in the region has made her attentive to the influence of history on contemporary gender and sexual politics in Israeli and Palestinian societies, and led her to develop her Special Topics course (JWST 300.04) - an opportunity for students to explore these themes in more depth, and develop an understanding of the links between past and present.

Natale is the inaugural Arnold Family Postdoctoral Fellow in Israel and Jewish Studies. In this role she will teach two courses per semester and contribute to the Jewish Studies Program in the area of Israel studies. Natale joins us from the University of Illinois where she recently completed her PhD in the history of childhood in British Mandate Palestine.

For this year's edition of "Holocaust Remembered," Professor Gibbs was asked to write about denial and threats to Holocaust memory. This 13th edition of the supplement is a wonderful issue and we hope you will give it a look as we commemorate Yom HaShoah here in Charleston and around the world.

We are thrilled to be organizing a seminar at the upcoming Lessons and Legacies of the Holocaust conference! Please join Avinoam Patt, Stephen Naron, Hana Green, and Chad Gibbs for "Plotting the Generational Turn in Holocaust Oral Histories," a working seminar on the “second generation” and the evolving field of Holocaust oral history, which will bring together participants to explore intergenerational memory and new directions in the field through a collaborative, in-progress project!

Call for Applications: Seminar Participant Applications
Deadline: 04 May 2026 (11:59 PM Pacific Time)

https://hef.northwestern.edu/lessons-and-legacies-conference/lessons-and-legacies.html

Lessons and Legacies XVIII
HEFNU at 50: Contexts, Connections, and (Dis)Continuities
Chicago Illinois, 12-15 November 2026 (Thursday–Sunday)

HEFNU is pleased to announce that applications are now open for those interested in participating in seminars during the 2026 Lessons & Legacies Conference in Chicago, Illinois. Seminar Participant Applications are open to all scholars, whether accepted to the Conference already or not.

In tandem with the official release of his new book "Survival at Treblinka" this month, Professor Gibbs has a new article in The Conversation today.

80 years later, scholarship is breaking silence on women’s suffering and strength at Treblinka – including their role in its uprising Topics such as sexual assault have been difficult for survivors and historians to write about, even decades after the war.