“The Geography of Slave Labor: Dutch Jews and the Third Reich, 1942-1945“
Professional Background
Daan de Leeuw is currently a PhD candidate in history at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. Mr. de Leeuw holds a BA (cum laude) and MA (cum laude) in history from the University of Amsterdam. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked at NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam as research assistant and as a project manager for EHRI (the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure).
An article based on his award-winning MA thesis about physicians as perpetrators of human subject research was published as “'In the Name of Humanity': Nazi Doctors and Human Experiments in German Concentration Camps” in the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2020). An article pertaining to his doctoral research, “Mapping Jewish Slave Laborers’ Trajectories Through Concentration Camps,” is forthcoming in the Arolsen Research Series (2022).
Mr. de Leeuw has been awarded several fellowships and research grants, including a Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) Graduate Studies Fellowship, a Yad Vashem Summer Research Fellowship for PhD Students, a Junior Fellowship at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, an EHRI Conny Kristel Fellowship, and a Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund Grant.
Mr. de Leeuw has English, Dutch, German, and French language skills.
Fellowship Research
Mr. de Leeuw was awarded the 2021-2022 Ben and Zelda Cohen Fellowship to conduct research for his dissertation, “The Geography of Slave Labor: Dutch Jews and the Third Reich, 1942-1945.” During his time at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Mr. de Leeuw will study the trajectories of Dutch Jewish slave laborers through German concentration and annihilation camps. Drawing on a broad scope of USHMM resources, including survivor testimonies and Nazi administrative records, Mr. de Leeuw examines the movement of prisoners from camp to camp and how these transfers affected the social structures inmates created among themselves. Mr. de Leeuw applies Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and cartographic tools to visualize the paths of individuals and groups of deportees to study the plight of Jewish slave laborers, to understand their agency and powerlessness, and to scrutinize the German effort to win the war through the ruthless exploitation of prisoners. His doctoral project seeks to contribute to the knowledge on Jewish slave labor during World War II and to foster research on Holocaust geographies.