Barnabas Balint

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

Research Topic

Accelerated Development into Adulthood: The Changing Roles of Young Hungarians During the Holocaust

Supervisor: Zoe Waxman

 

I am a Doctoral candidate 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. I am currently focusing on the experiences of Jewish youth during the Holocaust in Hungary under the supervision of Professor Zoe Waxman.

 

I have written, published and presented internationally on aspects of the Holocaust across Europe. For my doctoral research, I hold 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 informal 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. In June 2021, I co-convened an international workshop entitled Rallying Europe: Intersectional Approaches To Youth In The Mid-Twentieth Century, and am co-editing a special issue of the European Review of History to publish our proceedings in early 2024. Outside of the academy, I have also organised an Oxford Events Series for Holocaust Memorial Day 2022, part of the Humanities Cultrual Programme funded by the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and the Magdalen College Trust. This series of 7 events with 18 speakers brought together members of the University and public to learn about the Holocaust and its contemporary relevance and was atteneded by over 600 people. 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

  • 'Intersectional Approaches to Jewish Youth During the Holocaust in Hungary', European Holocaust Studies V: Childhood during War and Genocide: Agency, Survival, and Representation, forthcoming (2024).
  • 'Competing for the Youth: Jewish Scout Identity, Religion and Gender during the Holocaust in France', Holocaust and Genocide Studies, forthcoming (2023), https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcad052.
  • '“I am now their father too”: The multi-layered meanings of family letters from the Jewish Maquis in France during the Second World War', Jewish Culture and History 24.2 (2023), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1462169X.2023.2192638 
  • 'Coming of Age During the Holocaust: The Adult Roles and Responsibilities of Young Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau', The Journal of Holocaust Research 35.1 (2021), 20-40, https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2020.1863637.
  • 'Beyond Antisemitism: Hungarian Ideological and Pragmatic Motivations for the Holocaust', Midlands Historical Review 2 (2018), https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2516-8568

 

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

  • '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.
  • '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).
  • '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.
  • '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 (forthcoming 2023).
  • '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 (forthcoming 2024)

 

Other

 

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)
  • 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
  • I hold Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE)

 

Public Engagement Projects

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 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)