ShoahLab – Holocaust Studies Laboratory at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade is pleased to announce the Jacob and Yetta Gelman International Research Workshop, organized by The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), in cooperation with Željka Oparnica and Milovan Pisarri from Shoah Lab.
The workshop will take place August 3–14, 2026 at the USHMM headquarters in Washington, D.C., USA.
About the Workshop
The workshop examines the complex social worlds of inmates in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany and its allies during 1933–1945. It focuses on interpersonal relations and interactions among prisoners of diverse backgrounds under extreme conditions of violence and control. A central question is how prisoners interacted—through cooperation, conflict, or solidarity—a topic that remains underexplored. The workshop aims to provide a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of camp life by analyzing these interactions.
Context and Themes
Concentration, labor, and extermination camps during World War II held highly diverse populations: Jews and Roma targeted for racial reasons, political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, men imprisoned for homosexuality, those labeled as “asocial,” convicted criminals, and Soviet prisoners of war. For instance, at Jasenovac, Roma, Serbs, and Jews lived and died alongside each other. Camps in southern France held Spanish Civil War refugees together with Jewish refugees and POWs, while French colonial camps in Africa—such as Bedeau, Djelfa, and Ain El Ourak—confined political prisoners, Jews, foreign refugees, and downed Allied airmen. These shared but stratified spaces facilitated unprecedented encounters among people from vastly different backgrounds under extreme pressure.
While scholarship has examined individual groups as perceived biological, racial, social, or ideological “threats,” few studies have focused on the day-to-day interactions between groups within mixed camps. The workshop builds on the work of Sofsky (1993), Helm (2014), and Wachsmann (2015), which illuminate camp structures, hierarchies, and power relations, and will focus on the dynamics of contact, exchange, solidarity, and conflict among diverse prisoner populations.
Key Questions
How did prisoners of different backgrounds interact under extreme conditions?
In what ways were official categories (racial, national, political) reinforced or subverted in daily camp life?
What new solidarities or divisions emerged within these enforced proximities?
How can a relational or “entangled” approach to the history of camp life highlight zones of contact and fluid identities under persecution?
The convenors welcome studies addressing these questions through single-camp research across Europe, colonial and semi-colonial territories, or comparative studies of multiple camps during 1933–1945. It will lay the groundwork for future collaborative research on the relational dimensions of internment during the Nazi period.
Museum Resources
Participants will have access to the USHMM’s extensive archival materials, including:
- Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945 – open-access digital resource with interactive maps;
- Millions of documents, photographs, films, books, diaries, and testimonies;
International Tracing Service digital archive with over 200 million digital images of documentation;
- Collections of personal writings, letters, artworks, and memoirs from camp inmates;
- Film footage, camp photographs, and oral histories of survivors and liberators.
Participants will have access to both the USHMM campus in Washington, D.C., and the David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center in Bowie, MD.
Application
The call is open to researchers of all academic disciplines (history, sociology, philosophy, literature, Romani studies, etc.) and career stages (from PhD candidates to senior faculty).
Deadline for applications: January 12, 2026
Applications must include:
- Short biography;
- Curriculum vitae;
- List of publications and ongoing research;
- Abstract of the proposed project (up to 500 words).
Applications must be submitted in English via: USHMM online application.
Funding: USHMM will reimburse the costs of the round-trip economy-class air tickets to/from Washington, D. C. metro area, and related incidental expenses, and provide accommodations for the duration of the workshop. Participants are required to attend the full workshop and submit a draft paper in advance of the program.
Contact for questions: researchworkshops@ushmm.org
The workshop has been made possible through the generosity of the Jacob and Yetta Gelman Endowment at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.