Dr. Justyna Matkowska

Professional Background

Justyna Matkowska earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wroclaw, where she also completed her MA and BA in literary studies. She furthered her academic expertise by completing the Postgraduate Romani Studies Program at the Pedagogical University of Krakow. In her professional capacity, Dr. Matkowska served as the Plenipotentiary of the Governor of Lower Silesia in Poland for National and Ethnic Minorities from 2016 to 2018.

Dr. Matkowska has been awarded research fellowships from prestigious institutions, including the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Romani Studies Program at Central European University. She has served as an expert researcher for the "Re-Thinking Roma Resistance" project at the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (Germany) and as a postdoctoral researcher at Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań (Poland). Her current research delves into the genocide of the Roma and Sinti, exploring themes of race and ethnicity, cultural memory, and Romani representation.

Fellowship Research

Justyna Matkowska has been awarded a 2024-2025 Broadening Academia Initiative Hybrid Fellowship for her project titled "Jews Finding Shelter Among Roma in German-occupied Poland during World War II."

The research project aims to investigate the historical phenomenon of Jews seeking refuge among the Romani community in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. The primary objective is to gather compelling evidence and shed light on the experiences of Jewish men and women who adopted the Romani lifestyle as a means of survival. Specifically, the study will examine the instances of Jews finding shelter among Romani people and uncover stories of Jews and Roma collaborating in escape and survival, as well as accounts of Roma identifying and supporting Jewish partisans hiding in the forests and vice versa.

This fellowship enables Dr. Matkowska to access the extensive archival collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), where survivors of this shared journey "speak" through recorded interviews and memoirs. She will focus primarily on oral histories, which offer a generational depth of understanding and provide insight into the diverse experiences of Jews finding shelter among Roma in German-occupied Poland during World War II.

Fellowship Period: November 1, 2024–April 30, 2025