Winners of the Nicolaus Copernicus Polish-German Research Award
Prof. Sascha Feuchert
Prof. Dr. Sascha Feuchert Feuchert holds the Ernst Ludwig Chambré Endowed Professorship for Modern German Literature with a focus on Holocaust Literature and its didactics. He is head of the Holocaust Literature Unit at the Institute of German Studies at Justus Liebig University Giessen. Professor Feuchert is primarily responsible for the conception and implementation of research projects and also coordinates cooperation with schools and extracurricular educational institutions. In addition to Holocaust Literature and its didactics, his research interests include German literature since 1945 to the present, the history and present of censorship, popular genres and their history (especially the detective novel), literary anti-Semitism, and problem areas of 'forensic literary studies' (especially literary/autobiographical forgeries).
Prof. Krystyna Radziszewska
Krystyna Radziszewska is Professor for German Studies at the University in Łódź. Professor Radziszewska is also a member of the Commission for the History of Germans in Poland. Her research focuses on regional issues, Polish-German relations, social, political, cultural and economic issues of German-speaking countries, history and culture of Łódź Germans. Furthermore, Professor Radziszewska?s research interests include history and culture of Łódź Jews 1918-1950, literary Łódź until 1939, Łódź ghetto ? its history, culture and literature, and the Jewish avantgarde in Łódź in the first half of the 20th century.
Feuchert and Radziszewska have been awarded in appreciation of their in-depth collaboration in the field of Holocaust studies. In the jury's view, their research into literary testimonies from the Jewish ghetto in Łódź/Litzmannstadt - the second largest in Poland under the Nazi occupation - has made a significant contribution to the reconstruction of day-to-day life and Jewish culture in the ghetto. The jury especially commended the five-volume edition of the so-called 'Ghetto Chronicle' produced in cooperation with other colleagues, as well as the 'Encyclopaedia' of the ghetto.
These annotated editions are records that were written jointly by Jewish ghetto residents, serving both to document historical events such as deportations and also preserve Jewish cultural history. According to the jury, they are of fundamental importance for research into Jewish life in the ghetto and form an essential basis for exploring research questions that go far beyond literary studies. The jury was also particularly impressed by the translation of the main joint publications into no less than four languages (German, Polish, English and Yiddish) as well as the public relations work done by the two literary scholars which has a far-reaching impact on society at large.
Sascha Feuchert and Krystyna Radziszewska have been working together since the 1990s. Over the years, a wide-ranging international network of researchers from various disciplines has developed around the high-profile scholarly collaboration between the two award winners. Their universities have each established research centres of international reputation in the field of Holocaust studies. Feuchert and Radziszewska made their findings about Jewish life in the ghetto known to the general public in a German-language radio programme and also used their work as a basis for developing teaching material for use in schools.
