Participant Info

First Name
Laura
Last Name
Hilton
Country
United States
State
OH Ohio
Affiliation
Muskingum University
Website URL
https://www.muskingum.edu/academics/history/faculty
Keywords
Rumors, Holocaust, Displaced Persons, Germany, Statelessness
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I earned my PhD in Modern European History from The Ohio State University in 2001.  I have taught at Muskingum University in New Concord, OH  since 2001 and currently hold the rank of Professor of History.  I teach courses on World History (since 1200), The Holocaust, the First World War, both 19th and 20th century European History, and Gender & History.  I supervise reading and writing seminars on Nazi Germany and Resistance and Collaboration during the Second World War.

My current projects are a book-length study of rumors in postwar Germany (1945-1952) and an exploration of how gender played a role in statelessness and migration from postwar Germany.

Newest Publications:

Co-Editor, Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, July 2020).
https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5767.htm

  • Co-author, Introduction: The Challenges and Necessity of Teaching the Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century
  • Co-author, Chapter 3: Legislation as a Path to Persecution
  • Author, Chapter 9: Resistance and RescueBook Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj3BAEFHiM0&feature=youtu.be
    Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-books-in-genocide-studies/id615387910

“Memorialization, Reconciliation, & Reflection: Teaching the Aftermaths of Genocide in Postwar Europe and Rwanda,” The History Teacher, Volume 54, Issue 2, (2021): 271-295.
Open Access Here: http://www.societyforhistoryeducation.org/pdfs/F21_Hilton.pdf

Recent Conference Activity:

I presented on my research on rumors, fear, and postwar Germany at the German Studies Association meeting in Portland, Oregon in 2019.  In 2018, I presented my work on the rumor culture in postwar Germany at two conferences, the Germans Studies Association in Pittsburgh, PA in late September and Lessons and Legacies in St Louis in November.

Recent Publications

“Postwar Food Rumors: Security, Victimhood, and Fear,” in Food, Culture, and Identity in Germany’s Century of War, Heather Benbow and Heather Perry (eds.), Palgrave Macmillan, December, 2019: 177-200.

“Who Was ‘Worthy’?: How Empathy Drove Policy Decisions about the Uprooted in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 32 (1), 2018: 8-28.

“The Experiences and Impact of the Stateless in the Postwar Period,” Jahrbuch des International Tracing Service, Volume 4: Freilegungen – Spiegelungen des NS-Verfolgung und ihrer Konsequenzen, June 2015: 157-172.

“The Black Market in History and Memory: German Perceptions of Victimhood from 1945 to 1948,” German History, Volume 28(4), 2010: 479-497.

“The Jewish Communities in Frankfurt and Zeilsheim in Comparative Perspective,” We Are Here: New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany.  Avinoam Patt and Michael Berkowitz (eds.), Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010: 194-226.

“Cultural Nationalism in Exile: Polish and Latvian Displaced Persons,” The Historian, Volume 71(2), 2009: 280-317.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Germany
Expertise by Geography
Germany, Western Europe
Expertise by Chronology
20th century
Expertise by Topic
Food History, Gender, Genocide, Holocaust & Nazi Persecution, Human Rights, Migration & Immigration, Women, World War II