Dr. Anca Filipovic

Professional Background

Anca Filipovici is a researcher at the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She holds a PhD in history from Babeș-Bolyai University. Dr. Filipovici’s primary research focuses on the political activism of Jewish adolescents in 20th-century Romania. Her research has been supported by the Fritz Bauer Institute, the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, and the Center for Holocaust Studies in Munich. 

Dr. Filipovici has published a monograph focused on youth and secondary education in interwar Moldova. In addition, she has written several articles and book chapters addressing the history of youth and education, the Holocaust, the history of Jews in Romania, Zionism, and youth movements.

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance Research Fellow, Anca Filipovici will conduct research on Zionist political activism among Jewish youth in Romania during the first half of the 20th-century. She argues that starting in the 1930s, Zionism emerged as a significant avenue of political engagement among Jewish youth, alongside communism and Bundism. Her work will examine how Zionist movements evolved from responses to antisemitism within a nationalist state to forms of resistance and expressions of agency during the Holocaust. During her residency, she will focus on how the experiences of youth in the resistance during the Holocaust contributed to a transition to postwar relief and humanitarian aid efforts for Jewish survivors. The Museum’s collections of particular importance to her work include selected records from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the World Jewish Congress, and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Residency Period: January 1, 2026–April 30, 2026