Professional Background
Bill Edmonds is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he also completed his master’s degree in Holocaust studies. Mr. Edmonds also holds a bachelor's degree in modern languages (French and Portuguese) from the University of Nottingham. His research is supported by a UKRI AHRC Technē studentship, and he has been awarded grants by the Friends Historical Society and the German History Society. Additionally, Mr. Edmonds received the Quaker Studies Research Association’s David Adshead Visiting Scholarship for 2026.
Mr. Edmonds PhD research examines the response of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) to the Holocaust through an international perspective, exploring wartime Quaker rescue and relief efforts in five geographical contexts: Germany, France, Portugal, North Africa, and Italy. Mr. Edmonds’ research thereby traces how the Quakers’ humanitarian values, rooted in pacifism, adapted to and were challenged by the circumstances and constraints of Nazi-aligned, neutral, colonial, and Allied-controlled territory as the Holocaust developed.
Fellowship Research
While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Kurt and Thea Sonnenmark Memorial Fellow, Bill Edmonds will consult the Museum’s extensive collections on the humanitarian work of the American Friends Service Committee (ASFC). By combining the Museum’s exclusive collection of AFSC case files with the organization’s correspondence, reports, and memoranda, and using them along with the private collections of Holocaust survivors' testimony, Mr. Edmonds will construct a detailed picture of how Quaker Holocaust aid operated across borders. In addition, he will utilize the Museum’s holdings from a diversity of national and local government archives to explore how Quakers negotiated with, and operated, within a variety of regimes.
Residency Period: June 1, 2027 – July 31, 2027