College of Charleston Mosse Lecture
Chad S.A. Gibbs, Survival at Treblinka: Geography, Gender, and Social Networks in Jewish Resistance (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2026).
Comment by Jacob Flaws (Kean University)
Chaired by Hanna Green (College of Charleston)
On August 2, 1943, prisoners at the Nazi extermination camp Treblinka, located in occupied Poland, launched an uprising against their captors, during which hundreds successfully escaped while guards killed as many in the process. In this groundbreaking work, Chad S.A. Gibbs draws upon recently discovered sources and novel research methods to fundamentally reassess Jewish resistance at Treblinka—both before and during the revolt.
Using the testimonies of revolt survivors, prior escapees, those who passed through the camp, and a handful of bystander witnesses and former SS guards, Gibbs sheds new light on the events of August 2 as well as many prior acts of resistance. Critical to these new interpretations of the revolt are the actions of women prisoners, who here assume a central place in this story for the first time.
Chad S.A. Gibbs is a historian of the Holocaust, antisemitism, and war and society. His work is devoted to understanding the timing, choices, and tactics of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Chad makes extensive use of oral history sources and practices both inside and outside the classroom. In that area, he holds ongoing positions as an Affiliated Researcher at the USC-Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and a Scholar Interviewer with the USC Shoah Foundation.
Jacob Flaws is an assistant professor of history at Kean University where he teaches in Holocaust and Genocide Studies as well as other topics in modern European history. He is the author of the 2024 book Spaces of Treblinka: Retracing a Death Camp (University of Nebraska Press). He has also authored three journal articles and three book chapters for edited volumes on topics ranging from German resettlers on the Eastern front to Nazi death trains and transit violence. Flaws is also a nonresident Research Fellow at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Hana G. Green is the inaugural Rose Mibab and Carl Goldberg Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies at the College of Charleston. She is a socio-cultural historian of the Holocaust, modern Jewish history and culture, and modern Europe. Hana’s research centers on Jewish responses to persecution, gender and identity formation, borderland and migration studies, and the dynamics of intercultural exchange and adaptation. Hana’s work has been supported by fellowships from the Claims Conference, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and others. She is currently adapting her dissertation on Jewish identity passing as a survival mechanism in Central Europe during the Holocaust into a book manuscript. In addition, Hana is co-editor of a forthcoming volume with Metropol Verlag and has several upcoming publications with De Gruyter and Oxford University Press. Hana received her PhD in History from Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. She received her MA in Holocaust Studies from the University of Haifa and her BA in History from the University of Florida.
