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Seminar Overview
Yad Vashem and USC Shoah Foundation partner in the framework of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance to offer
a free early-career Holocaust research seminar.
This seminar brings together PhD students and early-career researchers (PhD conferred 2021-2026) from IHRA member, observer, and liaison countries to broaden and deepen their subject expertise, teaching and research capabilities, and professional networks.
Conveners from Israel’s 2025 – 2026 IHRA Presidency, Yad Vashem, the USC Shoah Foundation, and the IHRA Academic Working Group provide framing and continuity through a four-part seminar consisting of Zoom guest lectures (Part I), self-paced online learning (Part II), in-person exchange and study at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw (Part III), and a series of Zoom wrap-up sessions following the in-person programme (Part IV). The seminar will be conducted in English.
Leading scholars have agreed to participate. These include Christoph Dieckmann, Mary Fulbrook, Andrea Löw, Robert Rozett, David Silberklang, Robert J. Williams, Catherine E. Clark, and Arkadi Zeltser.
Part I: 11 October - 22 November 2026
Consists of a sequence of initial lectures designed to create a solid, broad, mutual understanding of the events and ideologies that led to the Holocaust. It proceeds through the events of the Holocaust by time and place to ensure a cohesive foundation that participants can draw upon in their current and future teaching and research. These topics will include themes about the Jews, the Roma/Sinti, and members of other targeted groups – as individuals rather than objects of study – as well as perceptions of the Holocaust by perpetrators, survivors, victims, and local populations. They delve into gender, sexuality, material and visual culture, the course of World War II, imperialism/colonialism, antisemitism and racial ideologies, as well as historiography and historical methodologies.
Part II: 23 November - 12 December 2026
Consists of the six-module self-paced, online EHRI/Yad Vashem Coursera course “The Holocaust through the Perspective of Primary Sources,” which covers methodological questions for sources including diaries, photographs, official Nazi documents, and postwar survivor testimonies and helps orient learners to the repositories around the world that hold them.
Part III: 14 -18 December 2026, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw, December
Brings participants and conveners together in Warsaw, Poland, at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Internationally respected experts will lead lectures on site-specific topics and visits. Participants will also engage in discussion of their own pre-circulated research papers.
Part IV: Early January 2027
Consists of a series of zoom wrap-up sessions following the in-person programme
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this seminar,
participants will be able to:
• Describe the origins and events of the Holocaust transnationally
• Better understand the role of antisemitism and Nazi ideology before and during WWII
• Define the Holocaust and its victims and be able to differentiate between different victims of Nazi Germany and those fascist and extreme nationalist partners and other collaborators who participated in these crimes
• Analyze different types of primary source materials
• Identify and be able to use the world’s major repositories of primary sources related to the Holocaust
• Appreciate more fully how individual research contributes to larger historical questions, historiographic approaches, and current research in Holocaust studies
• Connect across international and disciplinary borders with colleagues working in the field
Application and Eligibility
The seminar is open to all students and early-career researchers from IHRA member, observer, and liaison countries and working in any relevant academic discipline who are either currently enrolled in a PhD program at an accredited university or received a PhD from an accredited university between 2021 and 2026. Relevant academic disciplines include but are not limited to history, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, political science, area or regional studies, cultural, film, music and visual art studies, and literature.
There is no tuition fee. In addition to academic content, the seminar offers participants an opportunity to build professional connections across IHRA countries and disciplines. The organizers will cover the cost of economy class flights or train, ground transportation, and lodging for the in-person portion of the seminar and offer either a stipend for meals or actual meals during the seminar.
Applicants are asked to submit:
• CV
• Texts addressing their motivation for applying and what outcomes they hope to achieve through participation
• Research statement (max 1000 words)
For PhD candidates only: Please share the email address of a recommender. We will contact them separately to upload the recommendation.
Deadline
All materials must be received by
15 April, 2026.
Recommendation letters (for PhD candidates only) are due by 22 April 2026.
Participants will be chosen by the seminar’s steering committee members and notified by 15 June 2026.
Apply now
For questions, please contact Michael Leiserowitz at mleiserowitz@holocaustremembrance.com