2025 Silberman Seminar

Jewish Experiences Under Nazi and Soviet Occupation of Eastern Europe

June 11-20, 2025

The 2025 Silberman Seminar will explore Jewish experiences during World War II in eastern Europe’s borderlands. Focusing on territories occupied by the Nazis and the Soviets in the wake of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the seminar will pay particular attention to the history of Jews who lived in the territories of present-day Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. It will shed light on how the ethno-national changes that occurred across this region, as well as the pressures from two totalitarian regimes, impacted relationships between Jews and their neighbors. The seminar leaders will discuss methods of survival, routes of escape, acts of resilience, practices of memory by Jews and other persecuted populations, and responses to the surge in popular and state antisemitism that followed the Holocaust in the region.

Key themes will include:

• Local histories

• Anti-Jewish violence

• Neighbors

• Refugees

• Gendered persecution

• Aftermath

The 2025 Silberman Seminar helps faculty, instructors, and advanced PhD students who are currently teaching or preparing to teach courses that focus on or have a curricular component related to the Holocaust. Applications are welcome from instructors across academic disciplines, including but not limited to Anthropology, Archeology, Art, Disability Studies, Gender Studies, German Studies, History, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Jewish Studies, Law and Human Rights, Migration Studies, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Political Science and International Relations, Psychology, Refugee Studies, Sociology, and Trauma and Memory Studies. The Seminar aims to deepen, broaden, and enrich how we teach the Holocaust through the lens of eastern European borderlands, drawing on a range of perspectives and disciplinary approaches.

Seminar Co-Facilitators:

Eliyana R. Adler, Professor of History and Judaic Studies, Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Binghamton University

Eliyana R. Adler teaches and studies East European Jewish history at Binghamton University. Her most recent book, Survival on the Margins: Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 2020) won the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research and the Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award in Polish Jewish Studies. She is also the author of In Her Hands: The Education of Jewish Girls in Tsarist Russia (Wayne State University Press, 2011) and the co-editor of several books, including, most recently, Entanglements of War: Social Networks in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust (Yad Vashem Press, 2023). She has published articles in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Yad Vashem Studies, East European Jewish Affairs, Polin, Jewish Social Studies, and other journals. Dr. Adler holds the Mandel Center’s 2024–2025 Alexander Grass Memorial Fellowship and has previously held fellowships sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem, the German Historical Institute, and Fulbright, among other institutions. Dr. Adler’s current work focuses on post-Holocaust Polish Jewish memorial books.

Elissa Bemporad, Professor of History and Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the Holocaust, Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Elissa Bemporad is a two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award. She is the author of three monographs, including Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk (Indiana University Press, 2013), Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (Oxford University Press, 2019), and, most recently, Revolution, Civil War, and New Ways of Life, volume 1 of the comprehensive Jews in the Soviet Union: A History (New York University Press, 2025). Dr. Bemporad is the editor of several volumes, including Pogroms: A Documentary History (Oxford University Press, 2021) and The Destruction of the Dubova Shtetl: Chronicle of a Dead City (Bloomsbury, 2025). Her work has appeared in French, Hebrew, Yiddish, Italian, and Russian.

Application Details

Seminar applicants can be at any career stage but must be teaching or anticipate teaching relevant courses at accredited institutions in North America, including colleges, universities, and community colleges. Applications must include: (1) a curriculum vitae; (2) a two-page statement outlining how the seminar will strengthen the candidate’s teaching related to the Holocaust, Eastern Europe, or other relevant topics; and (3) a draft syllabus with content relating to the Silberman Seminar topic that the candidate has taught or anticipates teaching.

In your statement of interest, please specifically address:

• How the seminar would augment or impact the course(s) you anticipate teaching;

• How the seminar would help to meet your institution's needs and/or expand your institution’s curricular offerings;

• How your perspective, experiences, and/or disciplinary approach will enhance the seminar discussions.

This seminar aims to convene scholars from various career levels, disciplines, regional locations, academic institutions, and backgrounds. Participants must commit to attending the entire seminar at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from June 11–20, 2025. All assigned readings and course materials will be made available to participants in advance of the program. After the seminar, participants are expected to submit a preliminary version of a revised syllabus. The seminar will include working sessions for participants to revise and expand their syllabi content using Museum resources.

Travel and Lodging

For non-local participants, the Mandel Center will cover the cost of (1) direct economy travel between the participant’s home institution and Washington, DC, and (2) lodging for the duration of the Seminar. All participants will receive $500 to defray the cost of meals and incidentals.

Deadline

Applications must be received electronically by Saturday, April 5, 2025. The application form is available online. Please contact the Campus Outreach team at campusoutreach@ushmm.org with any questions.

Applications from all qualified individuals will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, or any other protected status.

The Curt C. and Else Silberman Foundation endowed the Silberman Seminar for University Faculty in memory of Curt C. and Else Silberman. The Foundation supports programs in higher education that promote, protect, and strengthen Jewish values in democracy, human rights, ethical leadership, and cultural pluralism.