Verena Bunkus

since August 2021
Employee in the Education and Research Department, House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Centre, Berlin

since December 2016
PhD student in the EPPP Junior Research Group "History of Knowledge in the Modern Era", at the Centre for Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection and Gotha Research Centre, with research stays at the DHI Warsaw (02-03/2020) and in various archives in Poland (DAAD short scholarship, 01-03/2018)

July 2020 – March 2021
Project Coordinator Gender Consulting, Office of the Central Women's Representative, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

2014 – 2016
Research volunteer at the Topf & Sons – Die Ofenbauer von Auschwitz, Geschichtsmuseen Erfurt

2012 – 2013
Student Assistant at the Custody of the Humboldt University, Berlin

2010 – 2012
Research assistant at the Centre for Contemporary History Research, Potsdam

2009 – 2013
Master of Arts in Eastern European Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, 2011-2012 Study visit to Birmingham, UK

2006 – 2009
Bachelor of Arts in History and Slavic Languages and Literatures, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2008-2009 Erasmus stay at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland

2005 – 2006
Volunteer with Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste e.V. at the Auschwitz Jewish Centre in Oświęcim, Poland

German East, Polish West. Constructing German-Polish Spaces during the First Half of the 20th Century - A History of Knowledge

With the Treaty of Versailles and the establishment of Poland, the eastern border of Germany underwent significant changes. Politicians and scholars from both the Second Polish Republic and the Weimar Republic questioned these borders and sought to expand their influence. The dissertation project aims to illuminate the overlapping national and imperial rhetorics in their contemporary interconnections, contradictions, and mutual perceptions. By doing so, it seeks to broaden the conventional, nationally-oriented perspectives on German and Polish spatial imaginaries.

The study investigates how geographers, cartographers, and ethnologists constructed ostensibly homogeneous spaces and popularized them as political statements. The focus is on the production of knowledge related to thematic maps and ethnographic objects by German and Polish publishers, museums, and institutions. Despite their opposing positions, the scientists were not unfamiliar with each other; they had been acquainted since the imperial era and engaged in reciprocal reception within the transnational scientific community.

• History of East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries
• History of Cartography and Geography
• Museum Studies
• National Socialism and the Holocaust
• Urban history

Essays

Erinnerung an gemeinsame „Sommerreisen“. Das okkupierte Polen im Ersten Weltkrieg durch die Linse des Geographen Hans Praesent, in: Themenportal Europäische Geschichte, 2023. open access

Zwischen slawischer Bruderschaft und nationaler Souveränität. Die ukrainischen und polnischen Gymnastikvereine „Sokol“ im Lemberg der Jahrhundertwende, in: Tomas Glanc/Christian Voss (eds.), Konzepte des Slawischen, Leipzig 2016, pp. 113-142.

Together with Annegret Schüle, Ofenbauingenieur Kurt Prüfer in Erfurt und Auschwitz, in: Gerbergasse 18. Thüringer Vierteljahreszeitschrift für Zeitgeschichte und Politik, Heft 79/3 (2016), pp. 37-41.

Wolfenbüttel im Ersten Weltkrieg. Deutsch-Türkische Beziehungen im Spiegel des Wolfenbüttler Kreisblatts, in: Landkreis Wolfenbüttel (ed.), Heimatbuch 2015, Wolfenbüttel 2014, pp. 117-124.

Together with Trudy Dahan, Sheer Ganor, Martin Hagmayr, Héla Hecker and Ewa Miskiewicz, Versteinerte Spuren. Zur Erinnerung an ehemalige jüdische Studierende der Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität, Berlin 2010.

Reviews and conference reports

Review: Nithammer, Jasmin: Grenzen des Sozialismus zu Land und zu Wasser. Die tschechoslowakische Landgrenze und die polnische Seegrenze im Vergleich (1948-1968), in: Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung, 69 (2020), pp. 438-440 open access as well as in: sehepunkte 21 (2021), No. 5, 15 May 2021. open access
Review: Laba, Agnes: Die Grenze im Blick. Der Ostgrenzendiskurs der Weimarer Republik, Marburg 2019, in: H-Soz-Kult, 16 November 2020. open access
Conference report: together with Christoph Maisch, Political Epistemologies of Eastern Europe. Report on International Workshop, in: HISTORYKA. Studia Metodologiczne 48 (2018), pp. 483-489. open access and in: H-Soz-Kult, 06/06/2018. open access
Conference report: together with Kirsten Eppler, Falsche Prinzessinnen, Scharlatane und selbsternannte Experten. Hochstapler in neuzeitlichen Gesellschaften, 10.07.2017-12.07.2017 Gotha, in: H-Soz-Kult, 01.11.2017. open access
Conference report: Bericht zur Bundesvolontärstagung in Leipzig 2016, in: Thüringer Museumshefte 1 (2016), pp. 88-91.

Conference report: Concepts of Slavic. 14.03.2013-16.03.2013 Prague, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 13.06.2013. open access

Summer Semester 2019
Karten lesen und Bilder betrachten. Kartographiegeschichte und Visual History zur Einführung, University of Erfurt, Chair for Global History of the 19th Century

Winter Semester 2016/17
Mediale Geschichtsvermittlung in Gedenkstätten. Entwicklung eines Multimedia-Guides mit der Stiftung Kreisau für europäische Verständigung (Excursion), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Aleksander Brückner Centre for Interdisciplinary Polish Studies

Summer Semester 2016
Die Verfolgten des Naziregimes im Kontext der DDR-Erinnerungspolitik, University of Erfurt, Chair of Modern History, History and History Didactics (together with Dr Annegret Schüle)

Winter semester 2015/16
Von Erfurt nach Auschwitz. Die Firma J.A. Topf & Söhne und das Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager Auschwitz-Birkenau (with excursion to Auschwitz), University of Erfurt, Chair of Modern History, Contemporary History and History Didactics (together with PD Dr Annegret Schüle)