Wolf Gruner Receives Research Grant to Study at Center for Jewish Studies, Berlin

Wolf Gruner, director of USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, will spend two months in residence at the Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Jewish Studies this summer researching Jewish resistance against the Nazis.

The German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD) awarded Gruner a research grant at the Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Jewish Studies, which is a joint project of Humboldt-Universität, Freie Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Universität Potsdam, the Abraham Geiger Kolleg, and the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies. Gruner will be in residence June 1 to July 31, 2015.

The Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Jewish Studies facilitates the development of networks in transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to history, philosophy, Jewish studies, theology, literature and music, art history, and ancient history; and it supports the training of young scholars in the field of Jewish studies, Judeo-Christian and Muslim-Jewish-Christian exchange, and museums and memorial sites.

Gruner’s research during the fellowship will focus on immediate post-war awareness of individual Jewish resistance during World War II, and how this was eclipsed by perceptions of Jewish passivity. His work will also deal with suppressed memories, which fits into the Center’s thematic focal point on memory.

While in residence, Gruner will host a workshop for the Center’s Ph.D. candidates on the possibilities and limitations of USC Shoah Foundation testimony in academic research. He will also give a public talk on Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.