Dr. Fabien Théofilakis

Professional Background

Dr. Théofilakis is a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) visiting professor at the Canadian Center for German and European Study, University of Montreal.  He possesses skills in French, English, German, and Modern Greek.  While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Théofilakis conducted research on his project, “Writing the Narrative of the Past, Jerusalem, 1961: Adolf Eichmann’s Alternative ‘Story’ of the Holocaust.”

Publications by Dr. Théofilakis include, Les prisonniers de guerre allemands, France (1944-1949). Une captivité de guerre en temps de paix, (Fayard April 2014); “Eichmann’s Notes Kept during the Trial” in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Retrospect and Prospect, (German Historical Institute, Winter 2014); and “Institut für Europäische Geschichte,” in Lexikon der deutsch-französischen Kulturbeziehungen nach 1945, (Narr-Verlag, Tübingen, April 2013).  Dr. Théofilakis has also given various conference papers, including “From history to story: Eichmann in Jerusalem” at the Davis Center, Princeton University, in April 2015;  “Eichmann: No Ordinary Defendant” at the Zeitgeschichtliches Kolloquium Sommersemester workshop at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena in July 2014; and “Besetzen, widerstehen, fotografieren: Die Kriegsfotografie in Frankreich (1939–1948)” at the Universalmuseum in Joanneum, Graz, in June 2013.

Fellowship Research

For his Judith B. and Burton P. Resnick Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Théofilakis used the Leo Hurwitz movies, the Avner W. Less papers, and the testimonies from the Nuremberg Trials of Eichmann’s colleagues to produce a history of Eichmann’s measures to pressure German and Austrian Jews to emigrate, his involvement in organizing the deportation of the Jews in France from Drancy, and the mass deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. This research is the subject of his second book on Eichmann’s strategy of defense in Jerusalem.

Dr. Fabien Théofilakis was in residence at the Mandel Center from May 1 to November 30, 2015.