Dr. Sari J. Siegel

Professional Background

Since receiving her PhD in history from the University of Southern California, Dr. Siegel has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Yale Fortunoff Video Archive and the Cedars-Sinai Program in the History of Medicine. She subsequently became an assistant professor and the founding director of the Center for Medicine, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (MHGS) at Cedars-Sinai. During its four-year existence, MHGS developed a reputation for outstanding interdisciplinary programming and impactful mentorship of fellows, hosting two international symposia.

Dr. Siegel has published articles in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Journal of Genocide Research, among other peer-reviewed journals. An adaptation of her dissertation, her monograph, Jewish Doctors in Nazi Camps: Conscription, Coercion, and Resistance During the Holocaust, 1940-1945, is slated for publication by Yale University Press in 2027. She was a member of the Lancet Commission on Medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust and was co-author of the eponymous report that appeared in The Lancet medical journal.

Beyond teaching undergraduates as a visiting assistant professor in the University of California Los Angeles history department, Dr. Siegel has offered courses and delivered guest lectures to a broad spectrum of learners, including graduate students, medical students, practicing physicians, medical educators, and Holocaust educators. She has presented papers and given lectures, often on invitation, in conferences and workshops held in seven countries.

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Broadening Academia Initiative Hybrid Fellow, Sari Siegel will return to her postdoctoral project, “Healing after the Holocaust: Jewish DP-Physicians and the Provision of Medical Care to Fellow Survivors in Germany, 1945-1950.” She will utilize the Museum’s digitized resources, such as selected records of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which will contribute to her macro-level study of the DP-physicians, namely how these doctors fit into relief and rehabilitation initiatives. The Museum’s digital copy of the Arolsen Archives will also yield insight for her micro-level investigation of who and where these doctors were and how they navigated postwar circumstances to treat the illnesses and injuries—physical and emotional—from which their fellow survivors suffered in the aftermath of liberation. Her research will also benefit from the Museum’s collection of important rare books and family collections.

Fellowship Period: November 1, 2025 – April 30, 2026