Aleksandra Loewenau (United Kingdom), postdoctoral research assistant, Oxford Brookes University, “Rebuilding Lives of Jewish Survivors of Medical Experiments at Auschwitz: A Comparative Study”.

Aleksandra graduated with PhD in History of Medicine from Oxford Brookes University in 2012. The title of her thesis was “The Impact of Nazi Medical Experiments on Polish Inmates at Dachau, Auschwitz and Ravensbrück”.

Currently, Aleksandra is working as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant on the Wellcome Trust funded Programme Grant investigating “Disputed Bodies: Subject’s narratives of medical research in Europe, 1940-2001”. Her input involves analysing narratives of victims of medical crimes under National Socialism.

During her fellowship at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich she will examine factors that played an important role in shaping victims’ identity and character both before and after the war. Therefore, she will focus on analysing published sources regarding Jewish communities in Poland in the pre-war period and post-liberation problems faced by Polish Jews including the experience of DP camps and restitution.

Aleksandra’s current project is a continuation of her doctoral research. Her ultimate goal is to produce a monograph which would present correlations between three groups of Polish victims of Nazi medical experiments with a particular emphasis on trauma and consequent changing behaviour patterns during and after the war.