©Smadar Bergman, IIAS
Iris.nachum@mail.huji.ac.il, Personal website
I am a historian of Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on Austria and the Bohemian lands with a special interest in compensation and restitution; liberalism and nationalism; ethnic conflict and expulsion.
In my studies, I focus on the rise of German nationalism in the Habsburg Monarchy, the intriguing interplay between liberalism, nationalism, and Nazism, and the post-1945 expulsion of ethnic German peoples from Central and Eastern Europe to Germany and Austria. Most of my research and publications explore the complex interactions between demands, practices, and discourses of compensation (Wiedergutmachung) in the intra-German, German-Israeli, and German-Jewish contexts. My research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary, covering history, political theory, and law.
My recent book is titled Nationalbesitzstand und “Wiedergutmachung”. Zur historischen Semantik sudetendeutscher Kampfbegriffe (National Ownership and “Wiedergutmachung”. Historical Semantics of Sudeten German Combat Terms). The study explores the Sudeten German discourse on compensation in interwar Czechoslovakia, which I trace back to the national conflict between ethnic Germans and Czechs in the post-1848 Habsburg monarchy. The monograph appeared in 2021 and is part of the series "Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum".
Academic Activities
Since 2020, I have been serving as Senior Lecturer at the History Department and as Deputy Director of the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights, at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the academic year 2023-4, I co-organized the international Research Group "Paying for the Past: Reparations after the Holocaust in Global Context" at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies.
Current Projects:
Research Projects
“Hast thou murdered, and also taken possession?”Nazi Wrongs and the West German Equalization of Burdens Law –The project investigates, for the first time, how the West German Equalization of Burdens Law (Lastenausgleichsgesetz, LAG) coped, in theory and in practice, with cases involving Nazi wrongs. By focusing on Nazi wrongs, the project closes a major research gap on the intriguing LAG, but also enhances our understanding of both the participation of ethnic Germans in Nazi atrocities in Central and Eastern Europe and of West German society’s coping with the Nazi past. Read More.
"Negotiating German Identity" On the Complex Encounters Between Central and Eastern European Holocaust Survivors and German Postwar Legal Categories – Together with Prof. José Brunner – Tel Aviv University.
The project studies the complex encounters between German bureaucracy and Jewish Holocaust Survivors from Central and Eastern Europe claiming payments under three postwar West German laws, i.e., the Federal Compensation Law for Victims of Nazi Persecution, the Equalization of Burdens Law for displaced ethnic Germans and the Social Security Act. Read More.
Research Groups
"The Luxembourg Agreement and Its Impacts". Read More.
"Paying for the Past: Reparations after the Holocaust in Global Context". Read More.
Recent Publications:
Iris Nachum. 2021. 'Nationalbesitzstand Und 'Wiedergutmachung'- Zur Historischen Semantik Sudetendeutscher Kampfbegriffe'. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht. Read More.
Iris Nachum. 2023. “'Aryanization' In Central And Eastern Europe And The Equalization Of Burdens Files: The Case Of The Sudetenland”. Journal Of Modern European History, Vol. 21 , Pp. 294-310. Read Online.
Iris Nachum. 2023. “'VergangenheitsbewÄLtigung'? Ein RÜCkblick Auf Die Westdeutsche EntschÄDigungspolitik In Den Langen 1950Er-Jahren.”. In Singularität Im Plural. Kolonialismus, Holocaust Und Der Zweite Historikerstreit, Pp. 146-159. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.
Read More.
Iris Nachum. 2022. “'Coming To Terms With The Nazi Past'?: The West German Compensation Policy In The Long 1950S”. In Studies In Jewish History And Culture, Vol. 70, Pp. 11-24. Leiden: Brill. Read More.