Alex Scheepens

Biography

I am historian of modern European Jewish history, with a research focus on the Holocaust.

My current research centers on the Jewish experience in hiding in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. My work aims to understand the choices, motivations, behaviors, and experiences of those Jewish individuals who sought to escape the Nazi deportations and find refuge in the attics, basements, cellars, barns, and underground shelters of their non-Jewish countrymen. By employing a geographical lens and the history of emotions and drawing on written and oral sources in the Dutch, English, and Hebrew languages, I seek to reconstruct the Jewish experience and show how Jews living under the German occupation were dynamic historical actors who were influenced by their surroundings, took advantage of the presented opportunities, and coped with countless of different feelings and conditions.

Alongside my dissertation work, my teaching and research interests range from topics in modern European Jewish history and the Holocaust to the history of antisemitism, Zionism, and the State of Israel.

Education

M.A., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2021
M.A., European Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2016
B.A., International Relations, History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2014

Field

• European History
• Jewish History

MA Title

• “A Spatial Analysis of Emotions: The Jewish Experience in Hiding in the Dutch Countryside during the Nazi Occupation, 1940-1945 .”

Working Dissertation Title

• “The Jewish Experience in Hiding in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, 1940-1945”

Selected Publications

• Review of David Sorkin’s Jewish Emancipation: A History across Five Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), reviewed for Academic Blog, George L. Mosse Program in History.

Selected Awards

• Lipton Essay Award, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2023)
• Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award for Research and Study of the Holocaust, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2023)
• IAP Graduate and Professional Student Study Abroad Scholarship, UW-Madison (2023)
• Phyllis Greenberg Heideman and Richard D. Heideman Fellowship, Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust
• Memorial Museum (2023-2024; Declined)
• George L. Mosse Graduate Exchange Fellowship, UW-Madison/Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2022-2024; Received twice)
• EHRI Conny Kristel Fellowship, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (2022)
• Ida and Isaac Lipton Essay Award, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2022)
• Robert and Beverly Natelson Family Award in Jewish Studies, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2022)
• Rachel Feldhay Brenner Fund for Research and Study of the Holocaust, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2022)
• Andy Bachman Support Fund for Jews and Social Justice, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2022)
• Dissertation Travel Research Award, Department of History, UW-Madison (2022)
• Paul J. Schrag Prize in German Jewish History, Department of History, UW-Madison (2021)
• Robert and Beverly Natelson Family Award in Jewish Studies, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2021)
• Rachel Feldhay Brenner Fund for Research and Study of the Holocaust, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2021)
• Ida and Isaac Lipton Domestic Study Award, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2021)
• Ida and Isaac Lipton Essay Award, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2021)
• David Sorkin Graduate Student Support Fund, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2020)
• Robert and Lynn Berman Scholarship, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Madison (2020)
• Graduate School Fellowship, Department of History, UW-Madison (2019-2020)
• European Forum Excellence Fellowship, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2014-2015)
• International Summer School of German Language and Culture Scholarship, Universität Heidelberg (2014)

Courses Taught as TA

• History 223/Jewish 231 — The Holocaust (Fall 2020, Fall 2021)
• History 310/Jewish 310 — The Holocaust (Spring 2022)
• History 357 — The Second World War (Spring 2021)

Course Taught as Instructor

• History 357 — The Second World War (Summer 2023)