Nina Paulovicova is currently a contract instructor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. She received her Master’s at the University of Konstantin Philosopher in Nitra, Slovak Republic. She completed a program in Holocaust Studies for Educators from Abroad at the International School for Holocaust Studies in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem in 2002. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 2012. Dr. Nina Paulovicova was recently awarded the Gunzenberger-Reichman Family Fellowship of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her research interest lies in nineteenth and twentieth century Central and Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, nationalism and gender studies.

Dr. Nina Paulovicova is the author of the monograph Židovská komunita v dejinách mesta Hlohove (1938-1945). Príbeh, ktorý prešiel tmou (Jewish Community in the history of Hlohovec (1938 – 1945). The Story through darkness) (Hlohovec: Občianske združenie Ex Libris Ad Personam Hlohovec, 2009). She is also working on the book project titled ‘Anatomy of the Holocaust in Slovakia 1939-1945’ with Prof. Eduard Nižňanský. Whereas the first part of this book will represent a thematically organized account of the path of Slovak state to the Holocaust, the second part of the book will present a body of archival documents unknown in the English speaking world. She is also the author of several book chapters, articles and book reviews on the topic of the history and memory of the Holocaust. Dr. Nina Paulovicova has presented her work at universities and conferences in Canada, USA, Slovakia and Czech Republic.

During her tenure as an EHRI fellow in Jewish Museum of Prague in January-February 2012, Dr. Nina Paulovicova conducted research for her postdoctoral project ‘The rescue of Slovak Jews in the final stage of the clerico-fascist Slovak state (1944 – 1945)’. The aim of this project is to offer a more nuanced interpretation of the rescue efforts in the targeted period 1944-1945. More specifically, this project touches the raw nerve of Slovak national ego: it aims to scrutinize and de-mystify 1944 – 1945 as a period of ‘great willingness of help’ to the persecuted Jews. Weaving the shades of compliance of Slovaks with the clerico-fascist regime into the story of the assistance/non-assistance to Jews in this critical period aims to produce ‘the collage of multiple ambiguities’. This project not only looks at rescue of Jews more broadly, engaging with models of defiance of totalitarian states, but also sheds light on the controversy over the understanding of the Slovak World War II milieu.

Dr. Nina Paulovicova has completed her EHRI fellowship in January and February 2012. She may be contacted via e-mail at ninap@ualberta.ca.