Dr. Agnieszka Wierzcholska

agnieszka.wierzcholskauni-potsdam.de

2002–2008 studies in communication science, history, and French at the Freie Universität Berlin and the École normale supérieure in Paris

2004–2008 student research assistant at the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam in the projects “Mentalities in the Cold War” and “Memory and History” 

2008–2009 researcher at the Centre for Historical Research Berlin, Polish Academy of Science (PAN), project: “German-Polish Realms of Memory”

2008/9 M.A. at the  Freie Universität Berlin: Yiddish Press in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s

2019 Ph.D.  at the Freie Universität Berlin: Relations between the Jewish and the non-Jewish Population in Poland. Micro-studies on Tarnów 1918 – 1945, Magna cum laude

2011–2021 researcher and teacher at the department of history at the Institute for East-European Studies at the Freie Universität, Berlin

2021–2022 post-doc researcher at the German Historical Institute Paris

2022-2023 associated fellow at the Centre Marc Bloch Berlin and 

2022–2023 fellow at the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies, Potsdam

2023–2025 post-doc researcher at the Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe – responsible for the concept of a future memorial “German-Polish House”

Since 03/2025 post-doc researcher (funded by a Grant from the German Reasearch Fund) at the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies, Potsdam

Board Memberships:

2019–2025 Member of the Scientific Board at the ERC Project „Lubartworld“, led by Claire Zalc, (CNRS/ EHESS), Paris

As of 2025 Member of the Scientific Board at the Museum Karlshorst – Ort der Kapitulation

As of 2025 Member of the Scientific Board at the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin

 

2019/2020 academic councilor at the Foundation Topographie des Terrors, Berlin, for the  exhibit: “The Cold Eye. Last Pictures of Jewish Families from the Ghetto of Tarnów“

Monograph:

  • Nur Erinnerungen und Steine sind geblieben. Leben und Sterben einer polnisch-jüdischen Stadt, Tarnów 1918-1945 (=Fokus: Neue Studien zur Geschichte Polens und Osteuropas, Bd. 5). Paderborn: Schöningh/Brill 2022.

     Polish translation: Wspomnienia i kamienie. Życie i śmierć polsko-żydowskiego miasta. Tarnów 1918 – 1956. Austeria: Kraków 2023.

Edited Volumes:

  • Bluhm, Katharina / Pickhan, Gertrud / Stypińska, Justyna/ Wierzcholska, Agnieszka (eds.): Gender-Power-Eastern Europe. Changing Concepts of Femininities and Masculinities. Cham: Springer 2020.
  • Borchers, Roland/Bothe, Alina/Nesselrodt, Markus / Wierzcholska, Agnieszka (eds.): Das östliche Europa als Verflechtungsraum. Agency in der Geschichte. Berlin: Metropol 2021.

Other:

Articles in peer-reviewed Journals:

  • State Schools as Polish–Jewish Contact Zones: The Case of Tarnów. In: Polin. Studies in Polish Jewry. Liverpool University Press. Vol. 36 (2024), pp. 199-219.
  • Being Polish, Jewish, and Tarnovian: Youth and Polyvalent Senses of Belonging during the Second Polish Republic. East European Politics and Societies, 37 (2023) 1, p. 139-158. https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254211070849
  • Occupied Towns in Poland: Housing, Property and the Urban Space during the Shoah. In: Journal of Modern European History (2022), p. 1–18,  doi:10.1177/16118944221095624
  • La Shoah en bas de chez soi. La microhistoire d’une « opération de relocalisation » dans une ville du Gouvernement général. In : Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah 216 (2022), p. 79–98.
  • Helping, Denouncing, and Profiteering: A Process-Oriented Approach to Jewish–Gentile Relations in Occupied Poland from a Micro-Historical Perspective. In: Holocaust Studies. Special Issue: Kubátová, Hana / Láníček, Jan (Hg.): Jews and Gentiles in Eastern Europe During the Holocaust in History and Memory 23 (2017), S. 34–58.
  • Auf Jiddisch in Paris: Zur ostjüdischen Immigrationspresse im Frankreich der Zwischenkriegszeit. In: Simon-Dubnow-Institute-Yearbook 9 (2010), p. 37 – 55.
  • Relations between the Bund and the Polish Socialist Party from a Micro-historical Perspective: Tarnów in the Interwar Period. In: East European Jewish Affairs 43 (2013), p. 297-313.

Articles in other journals:

  • Polen, Juden, Tarnowianer? Die Politisierung von Ethnizität im Polen der 1930er Jahre. In: Osteuropa 62 (2012) 10,  p. 41–53.
  • Die Angst vor den „weißen Negern Europas“. Selbstwahrnehmung ostjüdischer Immigranten in der jiddischen Presse im Paris der Zwischenkriegszeit. In: Historie. Yearbook of the Center for Historical Research Berlin, Polish Academy of Science 3 (2009/2010), S. 323–335.

Chapters in Edited Volumes:

  • Besatzungsgesellschaften und Mikrohistorie. Alltagspraxen polnisch-jüdischer Beziehungen im Generalgouvernement. In: Osterloh, Jörg / Rauschenberger, Katharina (Hg.): Der Holocaust. Neue Studien zu Tathergängen, Reaktionen und Aufarbeitungen. Frankfurt 2017, S. 99‑­120.
  • Beyond the Bystander. Relations Between Jews and Gentile Poles in the General Government. In: Bajohr, Frank / Löw, Andrea (Hg.) The Holocaust and European Societies. Social Processes and Social Dynamics. Basingstoke 2016, S. 267–287.
  • Shtetl. Der Fiedler im Schmutz der Gasse. In: Hahn, Hans-Henning / Traba, Robert (Hg.): Deutsch-polnische Erinnerungsorte. Bd. 1. Paderborn 2015, S. 197-216.
  • Ofiara [Opfer]. In: Saryusz-Wolska, Magdalena / Traba, Robert (Hg.): Modi Memorandi. Leksykon kultury pamięci [Lexikon der Erinnerungskultur]. Warszawa 2014, S. 304-310.
  • If Moscow were Paris… Russia, the Soviet Union and Birobidzhan as Points of Reference in the Yiddish Press of Paris. In: Schulte, Jörg / Tabachnikova, Olga/ Wagstaff, Peter (Hg.): The Russian Jewish Diaspora and European Culture, 1917-1937. Amsterdam 2012, p. 221–236.
  • "Wir werden überdauern". Polnische Katholikinnen im KZ Ravensbrück. In: Arend, Sabine / Eschebach, Insa (Hg.): Ravensbrück: Christliche Frauen im Konzentrationslager 1939–1945. Berlin 2018, S. 227-240.
  • Gender in the Resurgent Polish Conservatism. In: Bluhm, Katharina / Varga, Michal (Hg.): New Conservatives in Russia and East Central Europe. London / New York 2019, S. 198–222.

Articles for Newspapers:

2009–2021, one to two courses per semester for BA History, MA History and MA Eas-European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

Holocaust Studies:

  • Holocaust in Eastern Europe: Occupied Societies and Local Neighborhood (summer 2017)
  • Jewish Children under German occupation in Eastern Europe (summer 2014)
  • Anti-Semitism in Poland after 1945 (summer 2010)
  • Comparing Jewish Museums: Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow (winter 2017/2018) – together with  Gertrud Pickhan

Jewish Studies:

  • The Jewish Minority in the Second Polish Republic (summer 2018/2016/2012)
  • Jewish Life in Poland after 1945 (summer 2015)
  • Jewish Lifeworlds in Galicia in the 19th century (summer 2011)

East European History:

  • Introduction to East European History (winter 2019/2020, 2014/15, 2011/12)
  • Nationalizing Empires? Nation-Building under Imperial Rule in Eastern Europe in the 19th century (winter 2016/17)
  • Nationalizing Strategies of Legitimating Political Power in the Eastern Bloc (after 1945) (winter 2013/14)
  • The Nation Strikes Back? New and Old Nationalisms in Eastern Europe (Winter 2019/2020) – with Sebastian Hoppe
  • Gender and Nation in Poland (summer 2018)
  • The Backward East and the Saturated West? Imaginations and Perception (winter 2014/15) – with Mihai Varga

Collective memory:

  • Collective Memory in Historiography (summer 2009) – with Kornelia Kończal