Katherine Coble

Professional Background

Katherine Coble is a doctoral student in modern European history and Jewish studies at Indiana University. She holds a master’s degree in contemporary history from the University of Edinburgh and a bachelor’s degree in history and classical studies from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

Ms. Cobel’s doctoral research examines the intimate and social worlds of “ordinary” Nazi perpetrators. Her work aims to illustrate why and how perpetrators enacted violence as part of their everyday lives. She maintains further research interests in sensory history, Holocaust tourism, and memory studies. Her research has been published in the Rutgers Art Review. 

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Summer Graduate Student Research Fellow, Katherine Cobel will examine “euthanasia” program employees as a collective social unit, considering doctors and nurses alongside bus drivers, landscapers, and maintenance workers. Ms. Cobel will utilize the Museum’s extensive collection of postwar perpetrator investigation records and its holdings of photographs related to the T4 program, reading these sources for evidence of everyday life amid extreme violence. 

Residency Period: June 1, 2026 – August 31, 2026