Dr. Ferenc Laczo

Professional Background

During his residency, Dr. Ferenc Laczo was Assistant Professor of European History at Maastricht University (The Netherlands). He had previously served as Guest Lecturer at the University of Basel (Switzerland), as well as Researcher for the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) and at the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena (Germany). As the Yetta and Jacob Gelman Fellow on the Holocaust in Romania at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Laczo conducted research for his new project entitled, “The Towering Survivor Historian in Exile: Randolph L. Braham and the Study of the Holocaust.”

Dr. Laczo is the author of several publications. His recent book, Hungarian Jews in the Age of Genocide: An Intellectual History, 1929-1948, was published in 2016. He is also the editor of Confronting Devastation: Memoirs of Holocaust Survivors from Hungary (2019) and the co-editor, with Joachim von Puttkamer, of Catastrophe and Utopia: Jewish Intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s (2017). His articles have appeared in journals such as Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, and Yad Vashem Studies, among others. Dr. Laczo is fluent in Hungarian, German, Dutch, and English.

Fellowship Research

While in residence, Dr. Laczo conducted research to complete an intellectual biography of Holocaust historian Randolph L. Braham. He sought to study Braham’s biographical trajectory and key contributions to the field of Holocaust studies in Hungary in a multilayered manner. Drawing upon Museum resources, he analyzed Braham’s works in terms of their methodology and source base, and place them in the context of the historiography of the Holocaust in Hungary and 20th century Hungarian history. He sought to explore how broader political, societal, and cultural changes have influenced Braham’s activities and views across the decades.

Dr. Laczo was in residence through August 30, 2019.