Barnabas Balint

Barnabas Balint
DPhil Student
Magdalen College
barnabas.balint@magd.ox.ac.uk

Research Topic

Negotiating Age: Young Jewish Identities during the Holocaust in Hungary

Supervisor: Zoe Waxman

 

I studied for my doctorate in History at Magdalen College, with a specific interest in the history of the Holocaust and its impact on society. Before starting my DPhil, I completed my undergraduate degree in History at the University of Exeter in 2019, where I was awarded the Jean Henderson Prize for the Finalist with Best Academic Performance in European History, after which I completed my master’s at Oxford in 2020. My multi-lingual research (in English, French and Hungarian) combines the history of childhood, gender and identity to explore Jewish youth responses to persecution during the Second World War. My DPhil research focused on the experiences of Jewish youth during the Holocaust in Hungary under the supervision of Professor Zoe Waxman. I am currently the Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance Research Fellow at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

 

I have written, published and presented internationally on aspects of the Holocaust across Europe. For my doctoral research, I have held Research Fellowships from the Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of Southern California, the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, and a 2023-24 Scouloudi Fellowship at the Institute for Historical Research. At Oxford, I teach and mark for a range of undergraduate papers in Modern History, for which I hold Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. I am also committed to having an impact outside the academy; I have been employed as a Communications Officer for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, have organized major outreach conferences for schools at the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, and was joint 2021/2 Postgraduate Representative for the British Association of Holocaust Studies. Furthermore, in support of Holocaust education and commemoration I have led ceremonies, written blog posts, conducted training sessions and spoken to UK national leaders including the Chief Rabbi, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and Prime Minister.

 

Activities

At Oxford, I founded and co-convene the Holocaust Studies Reading Group, an TORCH 'Critical Thinking' community of students researching issues relating to the Holocaust that meets four times a term to discuss the latest scholarship and research. I am also a Fellow of the Oxford Interfaith Forum and previously sat on the steering group for the Oxford Centre for the History of Childhood as a postgraduate representative. I have organised multiple international workshops, including Rallying Europe: Intersectional Approaches To Youth In The Mid-Twentieth Century (June 2021), papers from which have now been published in a special issue of the European Review of History that I co-edited. Most recently, I co-organised two workshops, on 'Mapping the Holocaust' and 'Animals and the Holocaust', both of which are planned for publication, too. Outside of the academy, I have consistently organised an Oxford Events Series for Holocaust Memorial Day, attended each year by hundreds of people both in person and online. In 2022, this was awarded funding from the Humanities Cultrual Programme of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and the Magdalen College Trust. For the 2021/2 academic year, I was the joint Postgraduate Representative for the British and Irish Association of Holocaust Studies, working with Charlie Knight from the University of Southampton to support postgraduate students and organise the annual BAHS Postgraduate Conference. We are subseqently co-editing a special issue of Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History.

 

Publications

Journal Articles

 

Special Issues Edited

 

Book Chapters

  • 'The Tiyul: Rescuing Jews by Smuggling across the Hungarian-Romanian border', in John Paul Newman, Ljubinka Škodrić, and Rade Ristanović (eds.), Anti-Axis Resistance in Southeastern Europe, 1940-1944: Forms and Varieties (Balkan Studies Library, Brill: Leiden, 2023), pp. 265–286, https://brill.com/display/book/9783657790395/BP000020.xml.

 

Blog Posts

 

Obituaries

 

Book Reviews

  • 'Space in Holocaust Research: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Spatial Thinking: Space in Holocaust Research: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Spatial Thinking, Edited by Janine Fubel, Alexandra Klei, and Annika Wienert, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 2025, Vii + 355 Pp., £73.00 (Cloth), ISBN 9783111078144', Jewish Culture and History (2024).
  • 'Dan Stone, Fate Unknown: Tracing the Missing after World War II and the Holocaust. Oxford University Press, 2023, 464 pp. ISBN 9780198846598', Central European University Review of Books (2024).
  • 'Amy Williams and Bill Niven, National and Transnational Memories of the Kindertransport: Exhibitions, Memorials, and Commemorations. Boydell & Brewer Inc., Rochester, NY, 2023. xii, 272 pp. £105. ISBN 978-1-64014-130-8', Journal of Jewish Studies 75.1 (2024).
  • 'A Summer of Mass Murder. 1941 Rehearsal for the Hungarian Holocaust. George Eisen. Purdue University Press, 2023. xxv + 379 pp. $99.99 (hardcover), $39.99 (paperback), ISBN 9781612497754', Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 23.2 (2024).
  • 'The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas: by Helen Roche, Oxford University Press, 2021. xx + 524 pp. £98 (hardback)', Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2024).
  • 'The Children’s Republic of Gaudiopolis: The History and Memory of a Budapest Children’s Home for Holocaust and War Orphans: by Gergely Kunt, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2022. xii + 236 pp., $75.00 / €63.00 / £54.00 (hardback)', Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 16.3 (2023), 509-511.
  • 'In Hitler’s Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism: by Michael Brenner, Princeton University Press, 2022, 392 pp., £21 (hardback)', Social History 48.2 (2023).
  • 'Women's Experiences of the Second World War: Exile, Occupation, and Everyday Life. Edited by Mark J. Corwley and Sandra Trudgen Dawson. The Boydell Press, 2021. xx + 224 pp. £75.00.', History - The Journal of the Historical Association 107/376, (June 2022), 606-607.
  • 'The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt: by Anna Hájková, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, 364 pp., £14.95 (hardback)', Cultural and Social History 19/4 (2022), 503-505.

 

Other

 

Prizes

  • Shortlisted - Royal Historical Society's Alexander Article Prize 2024
  • University of Exeter's Jean Henderson Prize for the Finalist with Best Academic Performance in European History 2019

 

Teaching

  • Final Honours School Paper - EWF13: Europe Divided, 1914-1989 (tutorials, essay marking, revision sessions, and collections marking)
  • Final Honours School Paper - EWF14: The Global Twentieth Century, 1930-2003 (collections marking)
  • Final Honours School Paper - XXV: France from the Popular Front to the Liberation 1936–1944 (classes, classwork marking)
  • Preliminary Examination Paper - Living With the Enemy: The Experience of the Second World War in Europe (tutorials, essay marking)
  • Hertford College, Oxford, Visiting Students Programme Tutor - Tutorials on 'The Holocaust: History and Memory'
  • Stanford House, Oxford Tutor - Tutorial in Interdisciplinary Area Studies, focusing on the history of Soviet Jewry (tutorials, gobbets marking)
  • Admissions Test Marker (History), St Anne's College, Oxford
  • BTh Theological Studies Marker - University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education 
  • I hold Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE)

 

Conferences/Workshops Organised

  • Barnabas Balint & Charlotte Gibbs, Animals and the Holocaust, Magdalen College Oxford, July 2024
  • Barnabas Balint, Cailee Davis, & Niamh Hanrahan, Mapping the Holocaust, Institute of Historical Research, May 2024
  • Barnabas Balint & Charlie Knight, British and Irish Association for Holocaust Studies Postgraduate Conference, Imperial War Museum, London, May 2022
  • Katharina Siebert & Barnabas Balint, Rallying Europe: Intersectional Approaches to Youth and Gender in Mid-20th Century Europe, University of Oxford and University of Vienna, online, July 2021

 

Public Engagement Projects

Events - Holocaust Memorial Day 2024

Events Series - 'Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories: Dedicated to Barbara Winton', Oxford Holocaust Memorial Events Series 2023 (7 events, January - February 2023)

Humanities Cultural Programme Project - 'Oxford Holocaust Memorial Events Series 2022: One Day When We Tell Their Stories', The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities - A Humanities Cultural Programme Funded Project (7 events, January - February 2022)

Events Series - 'Postgraduate Events Series', co-convened with Charlie Knight (University of Southampton), British Association for Holocaust Studies (November 2021 - August 2022)

Interviews - 'Ambassador Newsletter', Holocaust Educational Trust (June 2021- October 2022)

Events Series - 'Oxford Holocaust Memorial Lecture Series', (14 events, January - February 2021) 

 

Media 

Holocaust Memorial Day 2024

  • 'Speech at Holocaust Memorial Day Commemorations', Oxford City Council (January 2024)
  • 'Oxford remembers the Holocaust and worldwide genocides', Oxford Mail (January 2024)
  • 'South West pupils mark Holocaust Memorial Day at University of Exeter', University of Exeter (January 2024)
  • 'Exeter University Holocaust Memorial School Conference', BBC Spotlight (January 2024) 
  • 'Exeter University Holocaust Memorial School Conference', ITV West Country (January 2024)

Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

  • 'Holocaust Remembered: Oxford Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories', Oxford University (January 2023)
  • 'Barnabas Balint Interview on Mornings with Julie Skentelbery', BBC Radio Cornwall (January 2023)
  • 'Magdalen Student Organises Holocaust Memorial Events Series', Magdalen College, Oxford (January 2023)
  • “‘Peace isn’t just the absence of war’: Smajo Bešo OBE, Bosnian Genocide Educational Trust Founder and Chair”, The Oxford Student (January 2023)
  • 'South West pupils take part in Holocaust Memorial Day conference at the University of Exeter', The Exeter Daily (January 2023)
  • Lewis Clarke, 'Pupils mark Holocaust Memorial Day in moving conference', Devon Live (January 2023)