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History is like a dense forest – a mesmerising, living and growing organism. There are openings, where light comes in that reveals paths. But it’s difficult to find your way. A path you enter rarely discloses the entire wood.

Humans wander along the paths. Studying these people isn’t an exact science. I look for patterns and exceptions in group behaviour, but I don’t ignore actions taken by individuals – outstanding persons as well as ordinary people, who all give shape to history.

Research

As a historian, I’m curious about where we came from, how we got here and what made us the way we are. My main area of interest is integration of immigrants and their descendants into western European societies during the modern era.

At present, I research attitudes to immigrants in Great Britain between 1921 and 2021 and the language used to put these feelings into words. In this study I apply a linguistic historical approach to throw new light on past events and developments.

Affiliation

I’m also a specialist on the subject of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust and a member of the forum Jews Saving Jews at the Faculty of Jewish Studies of Bar-Ilan University. Just now I’m finalising a new book on individuals and small groups in Jewish resistance in the Netherlands.

My work on these subjects has been acknowledged through an appointment as Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Humanities of the University of Glasgow.

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The photos on this page are by Norma Braber-McKinney.