Ms. Katarzyna Grzybowska

Professional Background 

Katarzyna Grzybowska is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Polish Studies, Department of Anthropology of Literature and Cultural Studies, and a member of the Research Center for Memory Cultures at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. She also holds a master’s degree in cultural studies and teaching Polish as a foreign language and a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. 

Ms. Grzybowska was a Claims Conference Saul Kagan Fellow in Advanced Shoah Studies from 2021 to 2023 and an EHRI Conny Kristel Fellow. She also worked as a junior researcher in an international research project titled "Awkward Objects of Genocide: Vernacular Art on the Holocaust and Ethnographic Museums," funded by TRACES, the European Commission, Horizon2020, and the Reflective Society.

Ms. Grzybowska has authored several publications, including book chapters and articles, in journals such as Zagłada Źydów. Studia i Materiały, Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah, and Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal. She also co-edited the book Rzeczowy świadek (Material Witness) (Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie, 2019). She participated in a project on non-sites of memory titled "Unmemorialized Genocide Sites and Their Impact on Collective Memory, Cultural Identity, Ethical Attitudes and Intercultural Relations in Contemporary Poland," funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education under the National Programme for the Development of Humanities, which resulted in three published books.

Over the past four years, she has visited archives in Poland and Israel, conducted interviews with witnesses of the killings in Krępiecki Forest and their descendants, and incorporated into her work documents from their private archives. 

Fellowship Research 

Katarzyna Grzybowska was awarded a Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Visiting Fellowship to conduct research for her dissertation project, “Holocaust by Bullets Killing Site in Trial Documents, collective and Environmental Memory: Case Study of Krępiecki Forest.” 

Her research focuses on sites and non-sites of memory, particularly the memory of Krępiecki Forest, to uncover and analyze the contemporary functioning of the "Holocaust by Bullets" site within the collective and environmental memory theory framework. Her project delves into the bystanders’ attitudes toward the genocide in their neighborhood, using trial documents, unpublished testimonies, and visual materials to examine their influence on memory transfer. Ms. Grzybowska's research design comprises two intertwined levels: ontological, focusing on the place and its physical dimension, and epistemological, focusing on the site’s relations with its surroundings. She analyzes conducted interviews, continued field research, and archival research, exploring the memory of local bystanders within the context of Holocaust geographies. 

Residency Period: December 1, 2024–March 31, 2025