Anna Hájková

Anna Hájková is a Czech historian who is currently a faculty member at the University of Warwick. She specializes in the study of everyday life during the Holocaust and sexuality and the Holocaust.[1] According to Hájková, "My approach to queer Holocaust history shows a more complex, more human, and more real society beyond monsters and saints."[2]

Family

Hájková is the granddaughter of Czech historian Miloš Hájek (1921–2016) and his first wife, Alena Hájková (1924–2012), a historian who specialized in studying Czech Jewish resistance to Nazism. Both were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, and Miloš was a Charter 77 signatory and spokesperson.[3][4] She identifies as Jewish.[2]

Career

From 1998 to 2006, Hájková studied modern history at the Humboldt University Berlin and the University of Amsterdam. She obtained a master's degree under the supervision of Hartmut Kaelble with a thesis titled "Die Juden aus den Niederlanden im Ghetto Theresienstadt, 1943-1945" (The Jews from the Netherlands in Theresienstadt Ghetto, 1943–1945).[5] She received her PhD from the University of Toronto in 2013. Her thesis, supervised by Doris Bergen, was titled, "Prisoner Society in the Terezin Ghetto, 1941-1945", regarding the prisoner society in Theresienstadt Ghetto.[6] Her dissertation received the awards Irma-Rosenberg-Preis and Herbert-Steiner-Preis.[7][8] In 2013, she published the paper "Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto", which received the Catharine Stimpson Prize for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship.[9] According to Michal Frankl, this study uses "a new and inspiring methodological approach".[10] Since 2013, she has been a professor at the University of Warwick.[11]

In 2020, her book The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt was published by Oxford University Press, which Frankl described as an "important book project".[10] The same year, she edited an issue of German History titled "Sexuality, Holocaust, Stigma".[12] She is the chairman of the academic advisory board of Společnost pro queer paměť ("Society for Queer Memory"), a Czech society which collects information about LGBT history.[13] Hájková has also published articles about historical topics in newspapers and magazines such as Haaretz, Tablet Magazine, and History Today.[14]

Personal rights case

In April 2020, a German court found that Hájková had violated the personal rights of a deceased Holocaust survivor[2] by concluding from witness testimonies that it was not unlikely the then camp inmate had entertained a relationship with SS guard Anneliese Kohlmann.[15] Whilst Anneliese Kohlmann explicitly stated in her post-war trial she had fallen in love with this particular inmate,[16] recent legal and investigations arise from the remaining uncertainties regarding the extent to which the camp inmate might or might not have responded to Kohlmann's affection.[17]

Works
  • Hájková, Anna (2013). "Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto". Signs. 38 (3): 503–533. doi:10.1086/668607. S2CID 142859604.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Hájková, Anna (2013). Prisoner Society in the Terezin Ghetto, 1941-1945 (PhD thesis). University of Toronto.
  • Löw, Andrea; Bergen, Doris L.; Hájková, Anna, eds. (2014). Alltag im Holocaust: Jüdisches Leben im Großdeutschen Reich 1941–1945 [Everyday Life during the Holocaust: Jewish Lives in the Greater German Reich, 1941–1945] (in German). Walter de Gruyter GmbH. ISBN 978-3-486-73567-3.[18][19]
  • Lebovič, Eugen; Hájková, Pavla (2018). Hájková, Anna (ed.). Čekám, až se vrátíš: rodinné deníky z války [I am Waiting For You to Come Back: Wartime Family Diaries] (in Czech). NLN. ISBN 978-80-7422-655-7.[20]
  • Hájková, Anna; Heydt, Maria von der (2019). Die letzten Berliner Veit Simons: Holocaust, Geschlecht und das Ende des deutsch-jüdischen Bürgertums [The Last Veit Simons from Berlin. Holocaust, Gender, and the End of the German-Jewish Bourgeoisie] (in German). Hentrich und Hentrich Verlag Berlin. ISBN 978-3-95565-301-9.[21]
  • Hájková, Anna (2020). The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-005177-8.

References
  1. "Anna Hájková". The Conversation. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
  2. Batty, David (8 October 2020). "Holocaust survivor's daughter in legal battle with historian over claim of lesbian liaison with Nazi guard". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  3. Charter 77 spokesman Miloš Hájek dies at 94, Radia Praha, 26. Februar 2016
  4. "The autobiography The Memory of the Czech Left, written by my own grandfather—the resistance fighter, historian of the Third International, and dissident Miloš Hájek—is full of important men in his life: František Kriegel, Václav Havel, Jan Křen. But his first wife, my grandmother, Alena Hájková, who was with him in the resistance, an eminent historian herself—to this day the expert of the Czech Jews in the resistance—is mentioned only in passing." In: Anna Hájková: Israeli Historian Otto Dov Kulka Tells Auschwitz Story of a Czech Family That Never Existed, Tablet Magazine, 30. Oktober 2014
  5. Digitalisiertes Manuskript, pdf zum Download in: Digital Collections, Center for Jewish History
  6. Hájková, Anna (November 2013). Prisoner Society in the Terezin Ghetto, 1941-1945 (PhD thesis). University of Toronto.
  7. Verleihung der Irma Rosenberg-Preise 2014, Universität Wien
  8. Herbert-Steiner-Preis 2014, DÖW
  9. Hájková, Anna (2013). "Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto". Signs. 38 (3): 503–533. doi:10.1086/668607. S2CID 142859604.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  10. Frankl, Michal (2017). "Free of Controversy? Recent Research on the Holocaust in the Bohemian Lands". Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust. 31 (3): 262–270. doi:10.1080/23256249.2017.1371725. S2CID 165816065.
  11. "Dr Anna Hájková". warwick.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  12. Hájková, Anna (2020). "Introduction: Sexuality, Holocaust, Stigma*". German History. doi:10.1093/gerhis/ghaa033.
  13. queerpamet.cz academic advisory board
  14. "Articles by Anna Hájková | OUPblog, Haaretz, openDemocracy Journalist | Muck Rack". muckrack.com. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  15. "Daughter of Holocaust survivor sues historian over claim her mother had a lesbian relationship with a Nazi guard". PinkNews - Gay news, reviews and comment from the world's most read lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans news service. 8 October 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  16. Hájková, Anna (14 December 2019). "Als sich eine Aufseherin in die Jüdin Helene Sommer verliebte". www.tagesspiegel.de (in German). Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  17. "Lecturer taken to court for suggesting late Holocaust survivor had affair with SS camp guard". www.thejc.com. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  18. Friedrich, Klaus-Peter (2015). "Andrea Löw u.a. (Hrsg.), Alltag im Holocaust. Jüdisches Leben im Großdeutschen Reich 1941-1945". Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung (in German). 64 (2): 305–306. ISSN 0948-8294.
  19. Kilian, Jürgen (2014). "Review of Alltag im Holocaust. Jüdisches Leben im Großdeutschen Reich 1941–1945 (Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 106), Andrea Löw, , Anna Hájková". VSWG: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. 101 (1): 92–93. ISSN 0340-8728.
  20. Review by Jiří Křesťan in Soudobé dějiny (2019) (2/3) https://www.recensio.net/rezensionen/zeitschriften/soudobe-dejiny/2019/2-3/ReviewMonograph68469417 https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=804343
  21. Schilde, Kurt (2020). "Redaktion: Anna Hájková/Maria von der Heydt: Die letzten Berliner Veit Simons | Medaon". Medaon (in German).
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