© NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, photo: Connolly Weber Photography

Mirjam Zadoff

Director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism

Mirjam Zadoff became director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism in 2018. In addition to overall responsibility for exhibitions, events, and the educational program, her work involves networking and representation as well as the strategic, content-related, and organizational development of the Documentation Center, which opened in 2015. One of the first exhibitions for which she was responsible, Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, shown in 2019, signaled the new direction she sought to take and endowed the Documentation Center with its own distinctive signature. 

 Alongside contemporary art, participation and digitalization now play a central role in the work of the Documentation Center. On her initiative school students were invited to develop interventions for the permanent historical exhibition, while the mobile game Forced Abroad and the digital exhibition Departure Neuaubing were both inno-vative projects that brought the Documentation Center international acclaim. Under Mirjam Zadoff’s leadership the Documentation Center’s spectrum has broadened. It has become a place of discussion and dialogue about Germany’s past and about the relevance of this past for the present and future of Europe and beyond. 

Prior to her appointment as director of the Documentation Center, Mirjam Zadoff was Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington (USA), where she held the Alvin H. Rosenfeld Chair. She completed her doctorate and post-doctoral studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich. Guest professorships took her to Zurich, Berkeley, Berlin, and Augsburg. In her research and teaching she focuses on remembrance culture, new ways of conveying history, and the role of museums as political and democratic institutions. These are also the topics to which Zadoff and her team dedicate their outreach work at the Munich Documentation Center. As well as drawing on her expertise in history, art, and culture, she is also willing to tread new paths and to cooperate with a variety of partners in order to reach a broad and diverse public.

 Mirjam Zadoff has written guest commentaries for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Der Freitag, and Die Presse newspapers. She teaches at the Faculty of Politics at the Munich University of Technology and at the Faculty of History at the city’s Ludwig Maximilian University. She has edited and authored many books, exhibition catalogues, and articles including: Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, co-edited with Nicolaus Schafhausen; Annette Kelm – Die Bücher, co-edited with Udo Kittelmann and Nicolaus Schafhausen; and the monographs Der rote Hiob. Das Leben des Werner Scholem (translated as Werner Scholem: A German Life) and Nächstes Jahr in Marienbad. Gegenwelten jüdischer Kulturen der Moderne (translated as Next Year in Marienbad: The Lost Worlds of Jewish Spa Culture), which have appeared in many languages. In 2023 she published Gewalt und Gedächtnis: Globale Erinnerung im 21. Jahrhundert (Violence and Memory: Global Memory in the 21st Century) and in 2024 co-edited the collection of essays Trotzdem sprechen (Talk Nonetheless) together with Lena Gorelik and Miryam Schellbach.

As a holder of a number of honorary posts and memberships, Mirjam Zadoff campaigns for an open society, democracy, and participation and supports scholarship, art, and (remembrance) culture.  She is an associate member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, a member of the university council of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, and a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of Technology Munich. She is an active member of the advisory boards of the Haus der Geschichte Foundation in Bonn, the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, the Goethe-Institut, and the Swiss Memorial for the Victims of National Socialism. Among other awards Mirjam Zadoff has received the Bavarian Order of Merit and the Thomas-Dehler Prize.

“The commemoration of Nazi crimes was a political act, an act of resistance, sustained initially by the survivors and later by people and initiatives from all sectors of society and from many different countries. Remembrance culture in Germany is the result of this international engagement, of open and pluralist thinking, and hence a profoundly democratic project. This legacy is a privilege but at the same time it signifies a great responsibility: to resist populist fascism and new forms of anti-Semitism and racism and to stand up for an open and liberal society.”

Mirjam Zadoff

Short bio

Mirjam Zadoff became director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism in 2018. was Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington (USA), where she held the Alvin H. Rosenfeld Chair. Guest professorships took her to Zurich, Berkeley, Berlin, and Augsburg. She currently teaches at Ludwig Maximilian University and the University of Technology Munich. She has edited and authored many books, exhibition catalogues, and articles, including, most recently: Gewalt und Gedächtnis. Globale Erinnerung im 21. Jahrhundert (Violence and Memory: Global Memory in the 21st Century, 2023); TO BE SEEN. Queer Lives 1900–1950, exhibition catalogue, co-edited with Karolina Kühn; Trotzdem sprechen (Talk Nonetheless), co-edited with Lena Gorelik and Miryam Schellbach (2024); and Fragile Demokratien. Was freie Gesellschaften bedroht – und was sie zusammenhält (Fragile Democracies: What Threatens Free Societies and What Holds Them Together), co-edited with Denis Heuring and Paul-Moritz Rabe (2024).

Committees and memberships

•    Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, Hochschulrat
•    Akademie Schloss Solitude, Kuratorium
•    Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Außerordentliches Mitglied
•    Goethe-Institut, Fachbeirat Bildung und Diskurse
•    Haus der Wannseekonferenz, Wissenschaftlicher Beirat
•    Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Mitgliederversammlung
•    Schweizer Memorial für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, Beirat
•    Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Wissenschaftlicher Beirat
•    Technische Universität München, Kuratorium

Press images

01 | Dr. Mirjam Zadoff, director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism | © NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, photo: Connolly Weber Photography

02 | Dr. Mirjam Zadoff, director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism | © NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, photo: Connolly Weber Photography

03 | Dr. Mirjam Zadoff, director of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism | © NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, photo: Connolly Weber Photography

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