Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs

Professional Background

Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs is the Director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. She received a Ph.D. in Humanities from Jagiellonian University. For her Ina Levine Invitational Scholar Fellowship, Dr. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs conducted research for her project “Landscapes of (non) Memory: The Holocaust and Coming to Terms with National History and Identity in Education in Post-1989 Poland and the Wider World.”

Dr. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs was a fellow at several institutions. She was a Pew Fellow at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, a visiting fellow at Oxford University and at Cambridge University, and a DAAD fellow at the Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference. She is a member of the OSCE/ODIHR Advisory Council of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief (Organization for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights), a member of Advisory Council on Education about the Holocaust to the Minister of Education of Poland, and a member of the Polish delegation to the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research. Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs is the author of Me – Us – Them. Ethnic Prejudices and Alternative Methods of Education: The Case of Poland (Cracow: Universitas, 2003); Tolerancja. Jak uczyć siebie i innych [Tolerance. How to Teach Ourselves and Others] (Cracow: Villa Decius, 2003, 2004); co-author of Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religions and Beliefs in Public Schools (C. Durham, S. Ferrari, J. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs et al., Warsaw, ODIHR, 2007); editor of The Holocaust. Voices of Scholars, (ed.) (Cracow: The Center for Holocaust Studies, The State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau and Austeria, 2009) and co-editor of Pamięć. Świadomość. Odpowiedzialność. Remembrance. Awareness, Responsibility (with K. Oleksy), (Oświęcim: State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, 2008), Why Should We Teach about the Holocaust? (with Leszek Hońdo) (Cracow: the Institute for European Studies, Jagiellonian University and OSCE/ODIHR, 2005). She was also a member of the team involved in the empirical research in 27 EU states commissioned by the Fundamental Rights Agency which resulted in the report Discover the Past for the Future: A study on the role of historical sites and museums in Holocaust education and human rights education in the EU (Wolf Kaiser, Eva Fried, Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs et al.), (Vienna: FRA, 2010). She has published more than 50 articles on anti-Semitism in Poland, memory of the Holocaust and education about the Holocaust.

Fellowship Research

During her tenure at the Museum Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs conducted research on concepts of collective memory and national identity, social action, current historical narratives, and historical politics in reference to the Holocaust in Poland and beyond. She focused on the development of education about the Holocaust in comparative context and on empirical studies of attitudes towards Jews and memory of the Jewish past.

Dr. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs was in residence at the Mandel Center from September 1, 2011 to May 30, 2012.