Ms. Lena Clara Christoph

Professional Background

Lena Christoph is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna and part of the ERC research group “GLORE – Global Resettlement Regimes: Ambivalent Lessons Learned from the Postwar (1945-1951).” Prior to her doctoral studies, Ms. Christoph earned master's degrees from the University of Vienna and Monash University, Melbourne. Her master’s thesis, “Anti-Imperialist Solidarity in the International War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam,” examined the Russell Tribunal (1967) as an example of international solidarity activism against the war in Vietnam. Ms. Christoph’s doctoral research received the Vienna Global History scholarship, and in 2024, she was a doctoral research fellow at the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C.

Fellowship Research

Lena Christoph was awarded the Leon and Edith Milman Fellowship for her research project “The Philippines as a Place of Transit and Destination. Jewish, Russian, and Chinese Displaced Persons in Search of Old and New Homes, 1945-1952.” Her dissertation examines the immediate postwar work of the Philippine Mission of the United Nations organizations UNRRA and IRO with the three groups of displaced persons (DPs) mentioned above. It compares the negotiations on the repatriation and resettlement of DPs through an analysis of biographical material to foreground the transit and resettlement experiences of the DPs themselves.

This fellowship allows Ms. Christoph to utilize the Museum’s archival collections to retrieve stories of European Jewish survivors who were resettled from the Philippines to the United States. She plans to examine holdings from the Manila Jewish community, personal collections, oral history interviews, and records of other involved organizations, such as the World Jewish Congress or the Red Cross.

Residency Period: June 1, 2025 – July 30, 2025