2026 Curt C. and Else Silberman Faculty Seminar

Call for Applications

Seminar Dates: June 1-10, 2026

The 2026 Silberman Faculty Seminar explores resistance acts during the Holocaust with a focus on protest, hiding, and rescue. Together, we will examine the different forms of Jews’ resistance to Nazi antisemitic policies, as well as assistance that Jews and non-Jews (or “mixed” categories) provided to Jews, who found hiding places, lived under false identities, and escaped the Nazis during the Holocaust. In addition to discussing individual acts of resistance, we will investigate the ways in which Jewish and non-Jewish men and women were associated with or participated in resistance groups and networks. With the goal of teaching this content, we will consider why Jewish resistance during the Holocaust is still often perceived as a rare occurrence, and how gender stereotypes led to a restricted or distorted view of Jewish and non-Jewish resistance. We will also examine the following topics:

• varieties of Jewish resistance, including hiding, passing, and escaping, etc.

• comparative research of rescue across Europe during the Holocaust

• the contexts and methods of Jews' and non-Jews' resistance

• the consequences and moral implications of rescue actions

• Jewish and non-Jewish forms of cooperation

• the politics of commemorating resisters and rescuers, etc.

The 2026 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, 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 by drawing on a range of perspectives and disciplinary approaches to address different forms of Jews’ resistance to the Holocaust.

Seminar Co-Facilitators

Wolf Gruner, Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History, University of Southern California

Dr. Gruner received his PhD (1994) and Habilitation (2006) in history from the Technical University in Berlin and is a specialist in the history of the Holocaust, comparative genocide studies, and the global history of racism. He has authored 11 books, including Jewish Forced Labor under the Nazis: Economic Needs and Nazi Racial Aims (2006), Parias de la Patria: El mito de la liberación de los indígenas en la República de Bolivia 1825-1890 (2015), and the prize-winning The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia: Czech Initiatives, German Policies, Jewish Responses (2019) and Resisters. How Ordinary Jews fought Hitler’s Persecution (2023). He has been the Founding Director of the USC Center for Advanced Genocide Research since 2014, a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and founding member of the executive committee of the Consortium of Higher Education Centers of Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, Yad Vashem Jerusalem, and Women’s Christian University Tokyo. He was the 2025–26 Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence and 2002 Pearl Resnik Postdoctoral fellow at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, as well as the Desmond E. Lee Visiting Professor for Global Awareness at Webster University in St. Louis.

Kobi Kabalek, Assistant Professor of Holocaust Studies and Visual Studies, Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Kabalek received his PhD in history from the University of Virginia (2013). He has been an Assistant Professor of German and Jewish Studies at Penn State University since 2019. His research focuses on historical perceptions, moral sentiments, emotions, and memory in Holocaust testimonies, historical writing, and popular culture. Select publications include Rescue and Remembrance: Imagining the German Collective after Nazism (2025); “No Moment of Peace: Terror, Panic, and Horror in Responses to Nazi Violence against Jews, 1933 and 1938,” forthcoming in Holocaust and Genocide Studies; “‘The Exception Proves the Rule’ in the Memory of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ in Israel,” Journal of Israeli History (2025); (with Ella Falldorf) “Meaningful Work: Cultural Frameworks of Forced Labour in Accounts of Nazi Concentration Camp Inmates,” German History (2023); “Monsters in the Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors,” in Iris Idelson-Shein and Christian Wiese, eds., Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History: From the Middle Ages to Modernity (2019); “Edges of History and Memory: The ‘Final Stage’ of the Holocaust,” Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust (2015). In 2023, he was Phyllis Greenberg Heideman and Richard D. Heideman fellow at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies.

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 topic will strengthen the candidate’s teaching relating to the Holocaust 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 scholarly perspective, teaching 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 1-10, 2026. 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 Sunday, March 15, 2026. 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.