Gunnar Svante Paulsson (also known as Steve Paulsson) is a Swedish-born Canadian historian, university lecturer, and author who has taught in Britain, Canada, Germany, and Italy. He specializes in history of

The Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

and has been described as "an expert on that period". He is best known for his 2002 book, '' Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940-1945''.

Education and career

Paulsson graduated from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

in 1968 with a degree in psychology and worked in an unrelated career until 1989 when he began graduate study in history at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. He completed a D.Phil. ( Ph.D.) in Modern History in 1998 at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, while simultaneously holding the position of Lecturer and Director of the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust Studies at the

University of Leicester The University of Leicester ( ) is a public university, public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, Univ ...

in 1994–98. He then served as the Senior Historian in the Holocaust Exhibition Project Office at the Imperial War Museum in London in 1998–2000. He was the Koerner visiting fellow and lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and Pearl Resnick fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has also taught at the

, Viadrina University and the University of Siena. Paulsson is best known for his book, ''Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940-1945'' (Yale University Press, 2002), and his article, "The Bridge over the Øresund: the Historiography on the Expulsion of the Jews from Denmark, 1943."

''Secret City''

Paulsson's book, '' Secret City'', is a social history of the Jews who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto and tried to survive, living illegally "on the Aryan side". In its original form as his doctoral thesis, it was awarded the Franklin Prize in Contemporary History (1998). The English edition was awarded the biennial PSA/Orbis (now Kulczycki Prize) in 2004, and the Polish edition, ''Utajone Miasto: Żydzi po "aryjskiej" stronie Warszawy 1940-1945'' (Znak, 2007) was awarded the inaugural Moczarski Prize '' (pl)'' for the 2009 best book in history.

Works

Books * Gunnar S. Paulsson (2002), '' Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945''. New Haven:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

, .
Sample Review.
' * Published in Poland as ''Utajone miasto: Żydzi po aryjskiej stronie Warszawy 1940-1945'' (Znak, 2008) Translator Elzbieta Olender-Dmowska; Editors, Barbara Engelking &

Jacek Leociak Jacek Leociak (born 2 June 1957, in Warsaw) is a Polish literary scholar and historian as well as author. He is a professor of humanities and an employee of the Institute of Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Ce ...

* Gunnar S. Paulsson (2000), ''The Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum'' (Imperial War Museum, 2000) * Editor of Barbara Engelking, '' Holocaust and Memory'' ( Leicester University Press, 2000) Articles and book chapters * Gunnar S. Paulsson (2011), "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: A reply to Havi Dreifuss", Gal-ed: On the History and Culture of the Polish Jews, vol. 23(2011) * (Originally in Polin 13(2000) 78–103) * (originally in the Journal of Contemporary History, 30(1995) pp. 431–464) * Gunnar S. Paulsson (2003), "Ringelblum Revisited: Polish-Jewish Relations in Occupied Warsaw, 1940–1945," in Joshua D. Zimmerman, ed., ''Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath'' (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press, 2003). * Gunnar S. Paulsson (2001), "Evading the Holocaust: The Unexplored Continent of Holocaust Historiography," in John K. Roth and Elisabeth Maxwell, eds., ''Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust'', in an ''Age of Genocide'' (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave), volume 1/2001. * Gunnar S. Paulsson (2000), "The Demography of Jews in Hiding in Warsaw, 1943–1945," ''Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry'', volume 13(2000).

Awards

* 1998 Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History, awarded by the Institute of Contemporary History for "the best unpublished manuscript in one of the Institute's areas of interest (the two World Wars, extremist political movements of the left and right, East European and Jewish history)" * 2004 Biennial Polish Studies Association/Orbis Prize for "the best first book in English on any aspect of Polish affairs published in the past two years" * 2009 Inaugural Kazimierz Moczarski Prize for "the best historical book published in Poland in the past year" (for the Polish edition, ''Utajone miasto'')

Notes and references

Secret City book page
(with note about the author) {{DEFAULTSORT:Paulsson, Gunnar S. Living people British historians 20th-century Canadian historians Canadian male non-fiction writers Swedish emigrants to Canada Historians of the Holocaust Alumni of the University of Oxford Academic staff of the University of Toronto Academics of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Writers from Uppsala 1946 births