VUB PhD Cup finalist Annelies Augustyns discovers new elements in Holocaust research using German-Jewish diaries

Everyone knows Tales from the Secret Annex, based on the diaries and writings of Anne Frank during the German occupation of Amsterdam. Such diaries offer an uncensored look at daily life in a recent period of history. During her PhD research, Annelies Augustyns wanted to better understand how life in the Jewish community in the city of Breslau, today Wroclaw in Poland, changed during the rise, domination and fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.

That was problematic, because almost nothing was known about it, given that the city was almost completely destroyed at the end of the Second World War and became part of Poland. ...