Daan de Leeuw is a PhD Candidate in History at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, USA. Mr. de Leeuw holds a BA (cum laude) and MA (cum laude) in History from the University of Amsterdam.

In his dissertation “The Geography of Slave Labor: Dutch Jews and the Third Reich, 1942-1945,” he analyzes the trajectories of Dutch Jewish slave laborers through German concentration and annihilation camps.

Drawing on a broad scope of sources, Mr. de Leeuw examines the movement of prisoners from camp to camp and how these transfers affected the social structures inmates created among themselves. Mr. de Leeuw applies Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and cartographic tools to visualize the paths of individuals and groups of deportees to study the plight of Jewish slave laborers, to understand their agency and powerlessness, and to scrutinize the German effort to win the war through the ruthless exploitation of prisoners. His doctoral project seeks to contribute to the knowledge on Jewish slave labor during WWII and to foster research on Holocaust geographies.

Mr. de Leeuw has been awarded several fellowships and research grants, including a Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) Graduate Studies Fellowship, a Yad Vashem Summer Research Fellowship for PhD Students, a Junior Fellowship at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, a Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund Grant, and a Ben and Zelda Cohen Fellowship at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.