Dallas Michelbacher, Ph.D. Candidate, History, Central Michigan University, USA
Dallas received his B.A. in History from Auburn University in 2011. His dissertation is titled “Jewish Forced Labor in Romania under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944.” His research focuses on the use of Jewish forced laborers in private enterprises and government offices, labor camps, and labor detachments during the Holocaust in Romania. In his dissertation, he analyzes the ideological background and legal basis for forced labor in Romania, the organization of forced laborers into camps, the eventual re-organization of forced laborers into mobile labor detachments, the dissolution of the forced labor detachments at the end of the war, and the results of forced labor, as well as the experiences of survivors. Dallas will examine questions regarding the balance between economic rationality and racial ideology in the use of forced labor in Romania, the influence of parallel forced labor systems in other countries on the Romanian system, the efficiency of forced labor in Romania, the culture of corruption that permeated the forced labor system, and various forms of Jewish resistance to forced labor.
His research has been supported by two Title VIII Language Study Fellowships. In addition to English, Dallas speaks Romanian and German, and he has spent time studying in both Romania, at Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, and Germany, at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. Dallas has also written a book chapter on the nationalization of Jewish property in Sarajevo under the Ustasha regime, which he contributed to a forthcoming edited volume on the fascist regime in Croatia. His dissertation advisor is Dr. Eric A. Johnson.