"Reparations for Nazi Victims and Memory Politics in Postwar Europe"
Professional Background
Dr. Regula Ludi received a Ph.D. in history and an M.A. in history and legal studies from the University of Berne in Switzerland. During her fellowship at the Museum, she was a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Berne. For her Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship for Archival Research, Dr. Ludi conducted research on “Reparations for Nazi Victims and Memory Politics in Postwar Europe.”
Dr. Ludi has held positions as a lecturer at the University of Zürich and the College for Social Work in Berne, and from 1997 to 2000 worked as staff historian and head of the research team at the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland-Second World War. She is the recipient of several prestigious fellowships from institutions such as the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Center for European and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; and the Wiener Library and Institute of Contemporary History, London, United Kingdom. Dr. Ludi is the author of several articles and chapters on subjects including Swiss refugee policy in the Nazi era, Holocaust legacies in Switzerland, wartime memory as national ideology in the cold war era, Swiss victims of National Socialism, and the gendered nature of representations of the Nazi era past. Dr. Ludi has participated in several scholarly conferences and symposiums presenting papers on topics including postwar reparations for Nazi victims and postwar memory politics.
Fellowship Research
During her tenure at the Center, Dr. Ludi conducted research on postwar restitution and compensation payments to victims of the Nazi regime. She focused on the reparations practice in France, Germany, and Switzerland of the 1940s and 1950s. Dr. Ludi examined the moral, legal, and political questions surrounding the accountability and responsibility of various economic and political agents in redressing past wrongs.
Dr. Ludi was in residence at the Mandel Center from January 25 to May 24, 2005.