My research is about making connections—between people whose histories have been kept apart or silenced, between cultures that share the same difficult ground, and between the disciplines that try to make sense of them.

I am a cultural historian working at the intersection of memory studies, Holocaust studies, the contemporary history of Central and Eastern Europe, and public history. I am Professor at Vilnius University’s Institute of International Relations and Political Science (IIRPS VU), and I work with several institutions in Lithuania across history, political science and cultural research. I cooperate closely with Lund University, Tallinn University and other institutions across the region. I am also President-Elect of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS).

I work on how societies in Central and Eastern Europe live with the most difficult chapters of the twentieth century — the Holocaust, the Soviet deportations, the long aftermath of war and occupation — right up to the present day. My research combines cultural history and oral history, with a focus on the politics of memory in the aftermath of the Second World War.

In my research you will find, for example:

• how local Lithuanians were drawn into positions of power after the Second World War, and how the same generation came to lead the movement against Soviet rule in the late 1980s;
• the Soviet deportation of Lithuanian Jews in June 1941, and why it dropped out of Lithuanian national memory;
• how the Holocaust was commemorated in the Soviet Baltics, in film and public ritual, from the Thaw onwards;
• what non-Jewish neighbours saw of the Holocaust in Lithuanian towns, and what they told about it decades later;
• postmemory: how the granddaughters of perpetrators fill in the silences in their family histories and in collective memory.