2008–09 Sosland Foundation Fellow Dr. Barbara Krawcowicz
Barbara Krawcowicz received a Ph.D. and an M.A. in philosophy from Warsaw University in Poland. During her fellowship at the Museum she was a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. For her Sosland Foundation Fellowship, Dr. Krawcowicz conducted research for her project “‘God Has Made Me Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction’: Jewish Religious Thought from the Time of the Shoah.”
Dr. Krawcowicz is the author of the book William James: pragmatyzm i religia [William James: Pragmatism and Religion] (Wroclaw University Press, 2007) and several articles in scholarly journals, including “Czy powinniśmy być agnostykami?” [Should We Be Agnostics?] in Przegląd Filozoficzny (2005); “Kara w judaizmie rabinicznym” [Punishment in Rabbinical Judaism] in Przegląd Filozoficzny (2003); “Pamięć Shoah” [Memory of the Shoah] in Przeglad Polityczny (2003); and “Ludwig Wittgenstein i religia” [Ludwig Wittgenstein and Religion] in Przegląd Filozoficzny (2002). Dr. Krawcowicz has language skills in Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, and German.
During her tenure at the Center, Dr. Krawcowicz studied Jewish theological thought during the Holocaust. She revealed how Ultra-Orthodox religious thinkers in Nazi-occupied Europe reflected upon the Holocaust amid Jewish persecution. She researched both the written and spoken words of these thinkers to present a broad-based view of Jewish responses to the Holocaust on a theological level. Her research shed light on this area of Jewish theological history and Holocaust studies which has received little scholarly attention. To complete her research, Dr. Krawcowicz utilized the Museum’s extensive archival and secondary source collections, primarily the Ringelblum Oneg Shabbat collection, theological works and unpublished materials collected by Professor Gershon Greenberg, and published testimonies and memoirs, among other sources.
