The Center for Jewish Research was established on July 1, 2005, at the Institute of History of the University of Łódź. The Center’s task is to study the history of Jews in Poland. Our research activities focus primarily on the 19th and 20th centuries, largely dictated by the specifics of the Łódź region. The history of the Łódź Ghetto and the German occupation of Łódź and the Łódź region occupies a special place in the research conducted by the Center’s team.
The Center for Jewish Research carries out research and publishing projects in cooperation with academic centers at home and abroad.
Among the Center’s achievements to date are the publication of the five-volume source publication Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto/Litzmannstadt Ghetto 1941-1944, the Ghetto Encyclopedia, and several monographs and scholarly articles. In addition, more sources for the history of the Łódź Ghetto are being successively published.
The materials collected and compiled by the Center, based primarily on archives from the State Archives in Łódź, are also documentation on Jewish associations, laws concerning the Jewish population, issues for the study of the socio-professional structure, and political and economic life.
In addition to its ongoing research, one of the essential tasks of the Center for Jewish Research is to make information about existing sources and their contents available through source publications. We hope this will influence the development of interest and research into the history of the Jews of Łódź and the region.
The European University in Frankfurt (Oder)
The Lehrstuhl für Kultur und Geschichte Mittel- und Osteuropas at the European University in Frankfurt (Oder) was founded by Professor Dr. Karl Schlögel, who chaired it from October 1994 until March 2013. Schlögel’s imperative was that graduate students should enrich and flush-out their individual research projects by supplementing it with travel. The essence of this is that researchers are encouraged to spatially experience the historical locations and spaces and socially interact within them, using one’s own eyes and bodies as a conduit for enriching comprehension.
This tradition continues at the Lehrstuhl für Kultur und Geschichte Mittel- und Osteuropas, where its students immerse themselves in the culture and history of Central and Eastern Europe in a unique fashion. Not only is knowledge about Central and Eastern Europe taught at the Viadrina, but the program itself is anchored in the border region between Germany and Poland. As Germany’s easternmost university, faculty and students from Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, as well as from other countries in Europe and around the world, come together to work in an interdisciplinary manner to address the challenges, perspectives, and problems interwoven into the culture and history of Eastern Europe within its pan-European context.
Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Killing Sites 