Constance Pâris de Bollardière joined the George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights, and Conflict Prevention in 2016 and became the Assistant Director of the Center in 2021.
Her research pertains to the social and cultural history of Holocaust survivors. Since her PhD, she has been studying the reconstruction and migration of Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivors in early postwar France, with a special focus on the connections they maintained with others centers of the "Yiddish diaspora", particularly with New York City.
Since 2017, she has also been developing a cultural analysis of survivors' testimonial productions in various contexts, from early publications in Yiddish to more recent collections of video interviews.
Education/Degrees
- PhD in History, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (2017)
- Master in History, Université Paris 7 - Paris Diderot
- Courses in American History and Anthropology, Miami Dade College, Fulbright fellowship
- BA in History, Université Paris 7 - Paris Diderot
Publications
Testimony editing
- Marek Edelman, Ghetto de Varsovie. Carnets retrouvés, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2022. Introductory essay (p. 17-39), notes, biographies, chronology, bibliography (translated into German by Jens Hagestedt in Erinnerungen an das Warschauer Ghetto, Philipp Reclam Verlag, 2024).
Volume Editing
- After the Darkness? Holocaust Survivors’ Emotional, Psychological and Social Journeys in the Early Postwar Period, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2023 (with Sharon Kangisser Cohen).
- “Les migrations juives d’Europe centrale et orientale en France au lendemain de la Shoah”, Archives Juives. Revue d’histoire des Juifs de France, 54 (1), 2021 (with Simon Perego).
Journal Articles
- “Writings of Destruction and Reconstruction in the Polish-Jewish Diaspora: The Case of Yankev (Jacob) Pat, Yiddish Author, Educator and Activist”, In geveb. A Journal of Yiddish Studies, published online on March 19, 2024.
- “D’une enfance russe au socialisme yiddish. Vladimir Medem, ‘légende du mouvement ouvrier juif'”, K. Les Juifs, l'Europe, le XXIème siècle published online on February 15, 2023. Translated into English by Bernard Dov Belz.
- “Du projet d’une ‘communauté de survivants’ à la plateforme Aviary. Introduction à l’histoire et au contenu de la Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies”, Sonorités. Bulletin de l’Association française des archives orales sonores et audiovisuelles, 47, 2021, p. 124-143.
- “The Jewish Labor Committee’s support of Yiddish culture in early post-Holocaust France, 1945-1948”, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 20 (2), 2021, p. 196-221.
- “Les migrations juives d’Europe centrale et orientale en France au lendemain de la Shoah”, Archives Juives. Revue d’histoire des Juifs de France, 54 (1), 2021, p. 4-24 (with Simon Perego).
- “Un foyer artistique et intellectuel yiddish pour migrants rescapés, le 9 rue Guy-Patin”, Archives Juives. Revue d’histoire des Juifs de France, 54 (1), 2021, p. 65-88 (with Malena Chinski).
- “Entraides, mémoires et migrations dans le monde yiddish. Une lettre de Yankev Pat à Marek Edelman, New York-Paris, 8 octobre 1946”, Tsafon. Revue d’études juives du Nord, 76, 2018, p. 157-168.
- “Les historiens face aux témoignages de rescapés de la Shoah”, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire, 139 (3), 2018, p. 231-241.
- “Le témoignage à la caméra : la Visual History Archive, une source audiovisuelle pour la recherche sur la Shoah et les crimes de masse”, Histoire@Politique, 33 (3), 2017 [online: histoire-politique.fr].
- “The Jewish Labor Committee's Bundist Relief Network in France, 1945-1948”, Kwartalnik Historii Żydow/Jewish History Quarterly, 246 (2), 2013, p. 293-301.
- “Mutualité, fraternité et travail social chez les bundistes de France, 1944-1947”, Archives Juives. Revue d’histoire des Juifs de France, 45 (1), 2012, p. 27-42.
Book Chapters
- “Introduction” (with Sharon Kangisser Cohen), in Constance Pâris de Bollardière and Sharon Kangisser Cohen (eds.), After the Darkness ? Holocaust Survivors’ Emotional, Psychological and Social Journeys in the Early Postwar Period, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2023, p. 7-31.
- “A Yiddish Artistic and Intellectual Home for Migrant Shoah Survivors, 9 rue Guy-Patin, Paris (1947-1950)” (with Malena Chinski), in Constance Pâris de Bollardière and Sharon Kangisser Cohen (eds.), After the Darkness ? Holocaust Survivors’ Emotional, Psychological and Social Journeys in the Early Postwar Period, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2023, p. 151-177.
- “The French Bundist Movement after the Holocaust: Between Self and Collective Reconstruction, 1944-1948”, in Vincenzo Pinto (ed.), Bundist Legacy after the Second World War. “Real” Place versus “Displaced” Time, Leyde/Boston, Brill, collection “Studies in Jewish History and Culture”, 52, 2018, p. 39-55.
- “'Écritures de la destruction' et reconstruction : Yankev Pat, auteur et acteur du monde yiddish. Le cas de Paris, 1944- 1948”, in Judith Lindenberg (ed.), Premiers savoirs de la Shoah, Paris, CNRS Editions, 2017, p. 275-291.
Exhibition Catalogs
- The Resistance of the Bund in Juifs, résistants et combattants, Musée de la Résistance en ligne, 2022.
- Après la Shoah. Rescapés, réfugiés, survivants (1944-1947), Paris, Editions du Mémorial de la Shoah, 2016 (with Henry Rousso, Laure Fourtage, Julia Maspero and Simon Perego).
Annotated Bibliography
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“French-Language Books Published in France in 2016–2021”, East European Jewish Affairs, 51/2-3, 2021, p. 308-318.
Preface
- Preface (p. 9-13) to Henri Minczeles, Histoire générale du Bund. Un mouvement révolutionnaire juif, Paris, L'échappée, 2022.
Dictionaries and Research Websites Entries
- “Fajwel Schrager (né Ostrynski), bundiste, directeur de l'ORT-France et du bureau parisien de l'Union mondialeORT (Krynki (Empire russe), 2 mai 1907 - Paris, 13 juin 1979)”, Archives Juives. Revue d’histoire des Juifs de France, 48 (1), 2015, p. 136-140.
- “Bund”, in Jean Leselbaum et Antoine Spire (eds.), Dictionnaire du judaïsme français depuis 1944, Paris/Lormont, Armand Colin/Editions Le Bord de l'Eau, collection “Judaïsme”, 2013, p. 127-129.
- Yankev Pat, Henekh, un enfant juif échappé du ghetto [Henekh, a yidish kind vos iz aroys fun geto], Et le monde écrivait... : lire la collection yiddish “Dos poylishe yidntum” (1946-1966), online on August 29, 2013 [poly.hypotheses.org/93].
- Avrom Teytlboym, Cours de Varsovie [Varshever heyf], Et le monde écrivait... : lire la collection yiddish “Dos poylishe yidntum” (1946-1966), online on December 13, 2013 [poly.hypotheses.org/181] (with Fleur Kuhn).
Book reviews (selection)
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Avinoam J. Patt, The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw. The Afterlife of the Revolt, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 2021: Tsafon. Revue d’études juives du Nord, 84, 2022, p. 156-161.
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Rachel Ertel, Mémoire du yiddish. Transmettre une langue assassinée. Entretiens avec Stéphane Bou, Paris, Albin Michel, 2019: In Geveb. A Journal of Yiddish Studies, online on February 6, 2020.
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Philippe Sands, East West Street. On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016: “De Lemberg à Nuremberg”, La Vie des Idées, online on September 28, 2017.
Affiliations
- Member of the research collective "Connus à cette adresse. European Cities and Social Dynamics of Anti-Jewish Persecutions"
- Book reviews coordinator of French publications, East European Jewish Affairs
- Member of the Association française d'études américaines (AFEA)
- Member of the Société des études juives (SEJ)
- Member of the editorial board of the journals Tsafon. Revue d'études juives du Nord and Archives juives. Revue d'histoire des Juifs de France