CEY - 2023 (Vol. 5) Introduction


Editorial Introduction
Meyer Weinshel
University of Minnesota

I am delighted to introduce the fifth volume of the journal. This current issue continues
our mission to promote scholarship of Central Europe among undergraduate students
from across the disciplines.

The Center for Austrian Studies and the Central Europe Yearbook Editorial Team also
wish to thank Professor Elizabeth Dillenburg’s leadership over the past five years. As
lead editor of the CEY, Elizabeth oversaw the publication of the journal starting with its
founding issue, and devoted significant time and effort to this project even after she had
left Minnesota for her position at the Ohio State University. We are grateful for her
commitment to undergraduate scholarship as are the many students who have worked
with her on the Central Europe Yearbook.

In this volume, we have a superb collection of publications, as well as a digital project,
that inevitably draw parallels to other issues of topical importance. Natalia Bobowiec
draws from her research of textbooks in Poland published in the last two decades, and
how textbooks frame (or elide) the Holocaust within Polish memory culture. The
prevalent binaries that Bobowiec uncovers point to the challenges of teaching
uncomfortable truths about one’s individual and collective past. Jackson Bowman dives
deeper into the aftermath of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination, which resulted in war
crimes committed against the towns of Lidice and Ležáky in 1942. Bowman argues that a
combination of allied coverage of the crimes in the United States, Britain, and the Czech
government in exile, were crucial in shoring up support for the allied war effort. Andrea
Cuniolo used the past few decades of scholarship on Martin Heidegger, to expose the
ways Heidegger’s actions before and after serving as rector of the University of Freiburg
were in line with antisemitic policies enacted by the Nazis. And lastly, Emmey Harris’
ArcGIS StoryMaps project highlights the role of Adam Olearius’ travels from Northern
Germany through what is today Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran in the form of his travel
accounts. Olearius’ writings serve as an important case study for the history of travel and

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publishing in the seventeenth century. The temporal and topical range of student research
published here reflects the breadth and depth of academic research in undergraduate
programs across the world today.

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