What is everyday life, and what does it consist of? And in what ways is everyday life affected by the life in extremis? These questions animate my work. My work examines the society in the camps, Jewish social and political elites, issues of nationalism and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and also the Jewish Councils. Here you can read an essay of mine on Claude Lanzmann's documentary.
I am interested in how people in 20th century Central and Eastern Europe arranged their lives, both during the state of exception and after, transitioning to a new kind of everyday life. I am also interested in questions of how groups emerge and interact and what roles gender, ethnicity, and culture played in these processes. It is my strong sense that when we look at everyday life against the grain, we find many examples that both complicate and enhance our understanding.
I have been researching sexuality and the Holocaust. Why were certain stories connected to sexuality of the Holocaust victims, such as people who engaged in same sex conduct, never told? My work explores the intersection of sexuality and violence in the Holocaust, and the erasure of certain sexualities from what has become the Holocaust canon. I examine the narrative erasure of lesbians and gays who were deported as Jews, homophobia of the victim society, sex barter, Jewish functionaries often marked as sexually deviant, mothers who abandonded their children, and also Jewish informers.
This work is political and linked to social justice, and so I present my work in English , German , and Czech media.
If you are looking for a good primer into sexuality and Holocaust, check out this blog entry at OUP. Here you can find a bibliography on the topic. Currently, I am writing a trade book on a concentration camp guard Anneliese Kohlmann, who engaged in an enforced relationship with a woman prisoner.
