"'I Might Have Seen the Ashes of Some of My Brothers': African American Holocaust Memory and the Resonance of Black Antifascism from World War to Cold War."
Professional Background
Anna Duensing is currently PhD Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University (United States). As the Diane and Howard Wohl Fellow at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Ms. Duensing will be conducting research for her dissertation project entitled, "'I Might Have Seen the Ashes of Some of My Brothers': African American Holocaust Memory and the Resonance of Black Antifascism from World War to Cold War."
Ms. Duensing is fluent in English and German, and can read in Yiddish.
Ms. Duensing is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including funding from the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure and the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library. Her time at Yale University has been funded by the Franke Fellowship in the Humanities. Furthermore, Ms. Duensing’s work is shaped by her active commitment to public humanities, including past positions at the National September 11 Memorial Museum and the Park Avenue Armory, and a current role at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. She is also working to build a digital version of “An American and Nothing Else: The Great War and the Battle for National Belonging,” an exhibit she curated at Sterling Memorial Library on Yale’s campus in Spring 2018.
Fellowship Research
While in residence at the Mandel Center, Ms. Duensing seeks to analyze connections between the Holocaust and its aftermath in Germany and postwar racial violence and the ongoing operation of white supremacy in the United States. In her work, these histories collide through stories about the U.S. army in postwar Germany, growing African American Holocaust consciousness, and about the strengths and limits of Black-Jewish solidarities. Her research also considers the postwar legacy of global antifascist movements in civil rights organizing and the influence of the interwar global Right on U.S. political and social movements after 1945.
Ms. Duensing will be in residence through July 31, 2019, and can be contacted at her museum email aduensing@ushmm.org.