The Jewish Studies Program at Cornell University is pleased to announce a two-day interdisciplinary workshop, "The State and the Holocaust: Encounters, Interactions, Social Dynamics," taking place on April 27–28, 2025, in Ithaca, NY. This workshop will bring together leading scholars and emerging voices to explore the pivotal role of state authorities and their interactions with Jewish communities and local populations during the Holocaust. Through case studies spanning Vichy France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Croatia, the Soviet Union, and beyond, participants will examine the complex dynamics of power, agency, and social ties under Nazi occupation. Presentations will highlight the multifaceted relationships between occupiers, collaborators, and civilians, addressing topics such as prewar norms, material and financial underpinnings of persecution, and the evolving role of Jewish communities’ alliances with the state. The workshop will also engage with innovative interdisciplinary frameworks from political science, sociology, and historical sociology to re-center the state in 20th-century European history, Holocaust, and Jewish studies. Designed as an intimate forum for presenting and discussing work-in-progress, this event aims to foster collaborative dialogue and cross-disciplinary insights into the Holocaust’s social and political dimensions.

This workshop is made possible by the support of the Drukier Family Fund.

Keynote: 6:00 – 7:00, Milstein Hall 101, Claire Zalc, "The Transnational Journey of a Militant Jewish Woman between Migration and Persecution (1913-1970s)"

Workshop Schedule:

Register to attend 

Sunday, April 27, 2025 in RPCC 106

3:00 – 5:00 Panel 1 and Q&A: Bureaucracy, Intimacy, and the Local State

This panel looks at the granular mechanisms of state-civilian interaction, where bureaucracy meets intimacy and moral ambiguity.

Chair: Cristina Florea (Cornell University)

• Stéphane Gerson – 'A Relational Ethnography of Assistance and Rescue in Nice, 1942–1944"
• Geraldien Frijtag Drabbe Kunzel – "Local Dynamics and the Holocaust: The Case of Hilversum and Roermond"
• Jan Burzlaff – "Reading the State from Below: Infrapolitics and Jewish Responses to Nazi Rule (late 1930s–1942)"

5:00-6:00 Reception

Monday, April 28, 2025, RPCC 106

10:00 – 12:00 Panel 2 and Q&A: When the State Collapses: Power, Violence, and the Vacuum

This panel examines how the erosion or transformation of state structures enabled and intensified mass violence, focusing on propaganda, collapse, and dispossession.

Chair: Jan Burzlaff (Cornell University)

• Jeffrey Herf – "Antisemitic Ideology and the Nazi Regime’ Propaganda during the Holocaust"
• Rachel Blumenthal – "The Anschluss: Violence by Ordinary Citizens in the Wake of a Transitional Power Vacuum"
• Alma Huselja – "Implementing Ustaša Rule: Dispossession, Race, and Nation in the Independent State of Croatia"

12:00 – 1:00 Lunch Break

1:00 – 3:00 Panel 3 and Q&A: In the Wake of the State: Reactions, Reckonings, and Reframings

This panel explores the long tail of state violence—through the war to reckoning, revenge, and memory.

Chair: Jan Burzlaff (Cornell University)

• Diana Dumitru – "Seeking Revenge and Justice after the Holocaust in the Soviet Union"
• Cristina Florea – "Saved by the German Language? Bukovinan Jews in Transnistria"

Register to attend