Ms. Didi Tal

Professional Background

Didi Tal is a PhD candidate in German studies at Columbia University. Her current research focuses on border control during the Holocaust and the intersections of paperwork and German exile literature. She holds an MFA in writing from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in history from Humboldt University in Berlin. 

Ms. Tal works as a Holocaust indexer for the Shoah Foundation and has contributed historical research for various projects at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She previously worked as a Holocaust educator at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. 

Fellowship Research

Didi Tal was awarded the William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellowship on America, the Holocaust, and the Jews for her dissertation project, “Papers and Trails: The Holocaust and U.S. Immigration Control.” Her work investigates the roles and representations of immigration-related paperwork during the Holocaust. During her time at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Ms. Tal will study the American responses to the large volume of refugees during the Holocaust, as well as the paper trails left by individuals and groups whose lives and fates were determined by border control policies. This interdisciplinary project aims to contextualize German exile within a historical moment when immigration emerged as a central political discourse in the United States and beyond.  

Residency Period: September 1, 2024–April 30, 2025