Amy Simon

Professor Simon is the William and Audrey Farber Family Chair in Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History. She holds a joint appointment with James Madison College and the Department of History in the College of Social Science and is a core faculty member of the Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel.

Dr. Simon is a former fellow and researcher at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Her research focuses on questions of victim/perpetrator relationships during the Holocaust, the so called “grey zones” of behavior that characterized that time, the world of Holocaust victim perceptions and emotions, and issues of representation and language within Holocaust studies.

She participates in international workshops and conferences hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem, the Association for Jewish Studies and the Holocaust Educational Foundation. Dr. Simon has also published articles on the topics of Holocaust literature, diaries, and perpetrators and pedagogy. She especially uses the lens of empathic history to better understand Jewish experiences and perceptions in the Nazi ghettos.

She is the recipient of a Saul Kagan Claims Conference Fellowship as well as the Leon Milman Memorial Fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. where she also worked as a researcher on a digital humanities project. Her teaching focuses on a holistic and inter-disciplinary approach to history that incorporates a variety of areas, including historiography, film, literature, public history and testimony. Simon has published articles on the topics of Holocaust literature, diaries, perpetrators and pedagogy.