Ms. Veronica Laputska

Professional Background

Veronica Laputska is currently PhD Candidate at the Graduate School for Social Research, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences and a co-founder of the EAST Center (Warsaw). Her thesis examines visual propaganda at the national commemorations in modern Belarus. Ms. Laputska holds a Specialist Diploma in International Relations from the Belarusian State University, an MA in European Studies from the European Humanities University, an MA in East European Studies from the University of Warsaw, as well as an MA in Economy and Society from the Lancaster University. Veronica speaks Belarusian, Czech, German, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Yiddish.

Veronica has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Rothschild Scholarship for the Naomi Prawer Kadar International Yiddish Summer Program at Tel Aviv University in 2019 (Israel); the YIVO Full Scholarship for Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture in 2018 (USA); a full PhD Scholarship from the Higher Education Support Programme (Open Society Foundation); and the Scholarship of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the University of Warsaw for MA studies in 2009–2011.

Ms. Laputska consults with various international and regional organizations and funds on media and democratization. In 2016-2017, Veronica carried out a joint project of the Jewish Museum in Minsk and USHMM that digitzed oral testimonies of the Belarusian Holocaust survivors and the Righteous among the Nations in Belarus. At the moment, Veronica works on two book projects with Dist. Prof. David R. Marples of the University of Alberta, Canada: one on the politics of memory of the places of mass extermination in Belarus in 1930-1940s and another on 2020 Belarusian protests. Her research interests and expertise include media, visual and Jewish studies as well as study of nationalism and politics of memory.

Fellowship Research

Ms. Laputska will be in-residence as a Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Fellow to conduct research on the project, “Maly Traścianiec and Other Forgotten Holocaust Sites in Belarus.” The biggest concentration camp on the Soviet territory during the Nazi occupation of its western lands, Maly Traścianiec was predominantly neglected in the Western historiography and often avoided in the glorification narratives of the Great Patriotic War present during the Soviet times. For this reason, Veronica aims to attempt to fill out this gap. During her stay, she will focus on the data from reports and investigative materials compiled by the Military Commissions of the Red (Soviet) Army related to crimes committed by the Nazis and their collaborators on the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during WWII, as well from documents and data collected by the Special Extraordinary Commission that investigated Nazi crimes after the war. She will analyse the documented reasons why Maly Traścianiec was neglected in official propaganda during the Soviet times and compare this to the documented data on losses and other details with the information exposed on the territory of the official memorial.

Residency Period: February 1 through April 30, 2022