Ms. Judith Vöcker

Professional Background

Judith Vöcker is a PhD candidate at the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Leicester, funded by the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Prior to her doctoral studies, Ms. Vöcker earned a bachelor's degree in Slavic studies from the University of Cologne, a bachelor's degree in German literature from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, and a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the Literature Institute Gorkij in Moscow. Following, she earned a master’s degree in eastern European history from the European-University Viadrina and the University College London, and a master’s degree in Jewish studies from Paideia, the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden.

Ms. Vöcker has held fellowships at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, the Wiener Holocaust Library in London, the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, and the Federal Archives in Berlin. In addition, Ms. Vöcker has conducted research in dozens of archives across Europe, Israel, and the United States and has been invited to speak at over 60 international conferences, seminars, and workshops. She is fluent in German, English, Russian, and Polish and speaks Ukrainian, Yiddish, Hebrew, French, Swedish, and Spanish.

Fellowship Research

Judith Vöcker was awarded a Fred and Maria Devinki Memorial Fellowship for her research project “‘In the name of the German Nation’: The German Jurisdiction in Warsaw 1939-1944.” This project aims to provide a first comprehensive overview of the German jurisdiction in the General Government and how the Nazi regime instrumentalized it as a political tool of control and suppression in their occupied space. In doing so, Ms. Vöcker will deliver answers about to what extent Nazi ideologies and racial premises manifested themselves in their legal sphere, how German law was applied and amended over the time of occupation, and how German judges applied the plethora of new regulations in court proceedings and verdicts in the General Government.

Through the principle and assumption of “Holocaust by trial,” this project demonstrates in intricate detail how the German jurisdiction in the General Government expedited the Holocaust and extended their sphere of control in their occupied territories. These correlations prove the necessity to consider the use and misuse of law by the Third Reich when researching the implementations and mechanisms of the Holocaust in occupied Poland.

This fellowship allows Ms. Vöcker to use the Museum's archival collections of digitized copies of court documents from the former German Court and Special Court in Warsaw, and to gain access to the administrative files and correspondence produced by the occupiers throughout the war years, all of which will be fundamental to the narrative of this project.

Residency Period: January 1, 2024–April 30, 2024