Older Jews and the Holocaust: Persecution, Displacement, and Survival
Co-edited with Dr. Christine Schmidt (Wiener Holocaust Library) and Dr. Elizabeth Anthony (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum), this volume (Wayne State University Press in association with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2026) focuses on the experiences of older Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust. It tackles age as a multilayered category of analysis that includes not just biological age but also self-understanding and contemporary social constructs and perspectives on age and the elderly.
This book reaches beyond the standard narration that tends to marginalize elderly Jews by highlighting mainly their vulnerability and death to explore how older Jews lived through genocide, navigated the aftermath of the atrocities, and how other actors (individuals, communities, organizations, states) reacted to the situation and needs of older Jews during the Holocaust, as well as to elderly survivors after the war.
The book both draws upon and contributes to a recent turn in Holocaust studies that zooms in on age, and explores intersections with other categories of analysis, including gender, sexuality, class, and ethnicity. The goal of the volume is to highlight new avenues of research, emphasize underutilized archival sources, and propel more scholarly and public interest in the crucial but understudied factor of advanced age in one’s prewar, Holocaust, and postwar experience.
Older Jews and the Holocaust has received funding support for a subvention for open-access publication and for accompanying academic events from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), the German Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ), the German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) and the Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation.
Open Access - Read by chapter and download the full book | Link
Paperback and hardcover editions and book info | Link
CURRENT EVENTS
UPCOMING EVENTS
May 9, 2026 | A Cross-Disciplinary Discussion of Methods and Memory | Betsy Anthony and Joanna Sliwa, with Felicity Aulino, Janelle Taylor, and Jessica Robbins | AAGE The Association for Anthropology, Gerontology and the Life Course Conference | University of Massachusetts—Amherst | Amherst, MA
PODCASTS
Dialogues in Holocaust Studies and the Second World War | Betsy Anthony, Michael Geheran, and Joanna Sliwa in conversation with Ari Barbalat
PAST EVENTS
April 2026 | Christine Schmidt, Betsy Anthony, and Joanna Sliwa in conversation with Debórah Dwork | Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, Graduate Center — City University of New York (CUNY) | In association with Center for Jewish Studies, The Graduate Center—CUNY, CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences, The Graduate Center—City University of New York, The William T. Daly School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University, and The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, Education Outreach Section, Outreach Division, Department of Global Communications, United Nations | Virtual
April 2026 | Book Launch | The Wiener Holocaust Library | With Christine Schmidt, Dan Stone, and Niamh Hanrahan, and Patricia Thane | London, UK
March 2026 | Book Launch | Claims Conference and the Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History | With Christine Schmidt, Betsy Anthony, Joanna Sliwa, and Chen Yurista and Markus Krah | New York
January 2026 | Panel on Older Jews and the Holocaust | Beyond Camps and Forced Labour Conference | Birkbeck University of London and The Wiener Holocaust Library | With Christine Schmidt, Betsy Anthony, Joanna Sliwa, and Dan Stone | London, UK
December 2025 | Curators Roundtable - Eldercide: Older Jews and the Holocaust | With Christine Schmidt and Dan Stone, and Roxy Moore | The Wiener Holocaust Library | London, UK
April 2025 | Older Jews and the Holocaust Symposium | Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University | With Betsy Anthony, Michael Geheran, and Joanna Sliwa | Worcester, MA
January 2025 | "New Perspectives on Age: Older Jews and the Holocaust" | American Historical Association | With Betsy Anthony, Kierra Crago-Schneider, Michael Geheran, and Joanna Sliwa | New York
December 2024 | Older People and the Holocaust: A Workshop for Doctoral Students and Early Career Researchers | The Wiener Holocaust Library | Link
November 2024 | “Challenging the Discourse on Age: Older Jews and the Holocaust” | Panel at Holocaust Educational Foundation’s Lessons and Legacies Southern California | Claremont McKenna College and the University of Southern California | With Christine Schmidt, Betsy Anthony, Dan Stone, Joanna Sliwa, and Debórah Dwork
October 2024 | Elizabeth Anthony, “Elderly Holocaust survivors in Vienna in the immediate postwar period” | Beit Theresienstadt | Online
September 2024 | “Older Jews and the Holocaust” Symposium | U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum | Program
PUBLICITY
Robert Philpot, “The elderly were among the most vulnerable in the Holocaust – and the most overlooked,” The Times of Israel, April 3, 2026, Link.
Meilan Solly, “Elderly Jews Were Among the Most Likely to Die in the Holocaust. Why Has History Forgotten About the Genocide’s Oldest Victims?” Smithsonian Magazine, November 12, 2025, Link.
“Older Jews and the Holocaust,” AJR Journal - The Association of Jewish Refugees, November 2024.
Jared Feldschreiber, “Claims Conference Co-Hosts Day-Long ‘Older Jews and the Holocaust’ in Washington,” Queens Jewish Link, September 18, 2024, Link.