Dr. Noah Benninga wrote his PhD dissertation at the Hebrew University on the “Material Culture of Prisoners in Auschwitz” (2017) and is currently an Associate Researcher at the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. He has published on the life of prisoners in Auschwitz and their material culture and is the co-editor of a volume on Personal Engagement and the Study of the Holocaust (Vallentine Mitchell, 2015). His current project, “The Reception of Vatican II in Poland and the Case of Stanisław Musiał,” concerns the Catholic theological response to the Holocaust and Polish-Jewish relations. This project is part of a Max Weber international research project, directed by the DHI Rome, on the Global Papacy of Pius XII: Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945-1958.
PhD Institution: Hebrew University
Research Topic during the Fellowship: The SS prisoner elite actions as symptomatic of the ambivalent position of this prisoner group, and the degree to which the SS men stationed in Auschwitz deviated from their directives by direct and illegal (in SS terms) involvement with the prisoners.
Current Position: Research Fellow, The Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University