2009–10 Ben and Zelda Cohen Fellow Mr. Daniel Brewing
Daniel Brewing is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He received an M.A. in history, political science, and constitutional law at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and spent an academic year at Warsaw University and the University of Poznań, Poland. For his Ben and Zelda Cohen Fellowship, Mr. Brewing is conducting research for his project, “In the Shadow of Auschwitz: Mass Crimes against Ethnic Poles, 1939-1945.”
Mr. Brewing is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2008-2009 research fellowship at the German Historical Institute, Warsaw and a German Academic Exchange Service Scholarship (DAAD). He has conducted research for the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s publication project Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1933-1946, the German Historical Museum’s exhibition Germans and Poles. 1.9.1939. Despair and Hope, and was as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg, Germany. Mr. Brewing is a former staff member of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial Site, Berlin, and served as a court-appointed expert in legal proceedings on the “Law of Accountability for Positions due to Employment in a Ghetto – ZRBG.” A native speaker of German, Mr. Brewing is fluent in English and Polish.
During his tenure at the Center, Mr. Brewing is studying mass crimes committed against ethnic Poles during the German occupation of Poland from 1939 to 1945. His research revolves around the role of various organizations of the occupation apparatus in the implementation of murderous violence against specific segments of Polish society. In addition, Mr. Brewing is exploring potential connections, continuities, and parallels to concurrent mass murders, including “Aktion Reinhardt” and the “War of Annihilation” against the Soviet Union. He is analyzing the excessive violence against ethnic Poles within the broader context of German occupation in Poland and “the East.” Mr. Brewing is utilizing the museum’s extensive Polish archival holdings, particularly records from the Institute of National Remembrance, the Archive of New Records, and various Polish State Archives. He will furthermore conduct research at nearby institutions such as the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
