Home
Photo of Victoria Martinez

Victoria Martinez

Research Assistant

As a postdoctoral researcher, I research the lives of survivors of Nazi persecution who came to Sweden as refugees during and after the Second World War, with a focus on women and the role of gender and other differences.

Afterlives: Jewish and Non-Jewish Polish Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Sweden Documenting Nazi Atrocities, 1945-1946

In January 2024, I defended my Ph.D. dissertation in history, titled "Afterlives: Jewish and Non-Jewish Polish Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Sweden Documenting Nazi Atrocities, 1945-1946" which analyzes how survivors of Nazi persecution who came to Sweden as refugees were involved in various sociohistorical processes during the post-war period, with a focus on women and the role of gender and other differences.

The origins of my research go back to early 2017, not long after my family and I moved to Sweden, when I was working as an independent historical researcher and writer. Since then, I have researched and published articles on the experiences, lives and, in some cases, untimely deaths of survivors of Nazi persecution who came to Sweden as refugees. This work served as the foundation my work as a doctoral candidate at Linköping University, which began in the fall of 2019. 

More about my research

Assignments and networks

Government inquiry 

In the winter of 2019, I contributed to the Swedish government inquiry into a museum about the Holocaust in Sweden.

I attended the national research seminar, but above all I was hired to write summaries of the panel discussions that took place at the international research conference organized by the inquiry.

The summaries are now part of the published conference anthology, part of a Swedish Government Official Report (SOU 2020:21, Volume 2). 

National Network for Holocaust Studies

I am also an active member of the national network for Holocaust Studies that was formed in 2020, where I participate in discussions about the field's past, present, and future in Sweden and beyond.

Migrant Knowledge Network

I am a member of the Migrant Knowledge Network of the German Historical Institute (GHI) Washington

The USC Shoah Foundation

I am a Non-Residential Fellow with the USC Shoah Foundation, 2023-2024.

Academic Publications

I serve on the editorial board of Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, a peer-reviewed journal published by SAGE journals. For two years, I was the editorial assistant for Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, a peer-reviewed journal published by Linköping University Electronic Press (LiU E-Press).

Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals

Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research

Publications

Cover of publication ''
Victoria Van Orden Martínez (2023)
Afterlives: Jewish and Non-Jewish Polish Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Sweden Documenting Nazi Atrocities, 1945-1946
Cover of publication ''
Victoria Van Orden Martínez (2023)
Witnessing the Suffering of Others in Watercolor and Pencil: Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz's Holocaust Art Exhibited in Sweden, 1945-46

Holocaust and Genocide Studies , Vol.37 , s.273-293 Continue to DOI

Cover of publication ''
Victoria Van Orden Martinez, Malin Thor Tureby (2023)
Monuments Cast Shadows: Remembering and Forgetting the 'Dead Survivors' of Nazi Persecution in Swedish Cemeteries

Fallen Monuments and Contested Memorials , s.177-189 Continue to DOI

List of publications

2024

Victoria Van Orden Martinez (2024) Survivors of Nazi Persecution, Refugees, Knowledge Actors: The Cultural Translation of Knowledge in an Effort to Document Nazi Atrocities, 1945-1946 History of Intellectual Culture: Experimental Spaces: Knowledge Production and its Environments in the Long Nineteenth Century, p. 25-47 (Chapter in book) Continue to DOI
Victoria Van Orden Martinez (2024) Lost Knowledge in a Hidden Archive: Ludwika Broel-Plater's Agency and Activism as a Forced Migrant in Sweden
Victoria Van Orden Martinez, Malin Thor Tureby (2024) Jewish Victims, Swedish Cemeteries: The Death, Burial, and Memorialization of the Surviving Remnant of European Jewry in Sweden, 1945-1955
Victoria Van Orden Martinez (Editorship) (2024) Bridging Research Praxes Across Pluralities of Knowledge

2023

Victoria Van Orden Martinez (2023) This is not an Onion: Ongoing Dialogue as Layers that Envelop and Enhance Research Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, Vol. 15 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Victoria Van Orden Martinez, Malin Thor Tureby (2023) Monuments Cast Shadows: Remembering and Forgetting the 'Dead Survivors' of Nazi Persecution in Swedish Cemeteries Fallen Monuments and Contested Memorials, p. 177-189 (Chapter in book) Continue to DOI
Victoria Van Orden Martinez (2023) Human Rights 'From Below': Survivors, Early Testimonies, and Restorative Justice in the Aftermath of the Second World War War, the Holocaust, and Human Rights Conference: October 11-13, 2023, The United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hosted by the US Air Force Academy and the University of Texas at Dallas (Conference paper)
Victoria Van Orden Martinez (2023) Holocaust Education through 'Authentic Sites' of Nazi Persecution in Sweden
Malin Thor Tureby, Kristin Wagrell, Victoria Van Orden Martinez (2023) Beyond survivor-witnessing: Redefining a field
Victoria Van Orden Martinez (2023) Beyond Flight and Rescue - Contextualizing the Holocaust through Survivors' Ongoing Survival
Victoria Van Orden Martínez (2023) Afterlives: Jewish and Non-Jewish Polish Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Sweden Documenting Nazi Atrocities, 1945-1946
Victoria Van Orden Martínez (2023) Witnessing the Suffering of Others in Watercolor and Pencil: Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz's Holocaust Art Exhibited in Sweden, 1945-46 Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 37, p. 273-293 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

Guest-edited publications

Indigenous Collections: Belongings, Decolonization, Contextualization

Van Orden Martínez, Victoria; George, Heather; Sentance, Nathan mudyi; Muñoz, Adriana; Phillips Laura (eds.) (2022) Indigenous Collections: Belongings, Decolonization, Contextualization. Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals.

Collections: A Journal for Museums and Archives Professionals

Vol. 15 No. 3 (2023): Bridging Research Praxes Across Pluralities of Knowledge

Guest Editor: Victoria Van Orden Martínez

Contributors: Alia Amir, Elise Bath, Juilee Decker, Birgit Eriksson, Rachel Faulkner, Louise Ejgod Hansen, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, 
Rizwan-ul Huq, Victoria Van Orden Martínez, Karen Nordentoft, Christine Schmidt, Anders Nordberg Sejerøe, Trine Sørensen, Barbara Wood

Abstract

How can researchers working both within and external to academia in all disciplines and areas of research recognize knowledge produced in other spheres and engage more ethically and collaboratively with that knowledge and those who create and circulate it? ...

Read more and download the Publication

Published: 2024-01-23

Research

Culture and society (Tema Q)

Tema Q/Culture and Society research environment is an interdisciplinary unit that seeks to foster a critical outlook on the multiple roles played by culture in society, in the present as well as in the past.

News

Photo of older notebooks.

Newly recognized crossover testimonies give important knowledge of the Holocaust

A collection of Holocaust testimonies in Sweden includes cases in which Jewish and non-Jewish Polish survivors interviewed each other. A history of conflict stood between the survivors, but this does not appear to have influenced the testimonies.

Conference

I coordinated the international and interdisciplinary conference Bridging research praxes across pluralities of knowledge, April 26-28, 2022.

Interpretation of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Two hands in different colours meet.

Conference: Bridging research praxes across pluralities of knowledge

An interdisciplinary and international conference consisting of dialogues on ethics, collaboration, and knowledge production, 26-28 April, 2022.

Organisation

Division of Culture, Society, Design and Media (KSFM)

The division conducts problem-oriented cultural science research and teaching at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences.

Division of History, Arts and Religious Studies (HKR)

The division conducts research and education within the subjects of History, Arts and Religious Studies.

Department of Culture and Society (IKOS)

At the Department of Culture and Society (IKOS), social sciences and the humanities gather in environments where research and education work together.

Tags