Tobias Wals is a Ph.D. candidate at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich (Germany). He received his MA in Slavic and East European Studies from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and previously worked as a research assistant at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Netherlands).

His Ph.D. research addresses the impact of World War II and the Holocaust on the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr, which he examines by looking at four experience groups: those who remained in the city during the occupation, those who served in the Soviet military, those who escaped to the Soviet rear, and those who were deported to Germany.