German historian Katja Happe is the new Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University. She will give the Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November 2019. She conducts research into the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, and wrote the critically acclaimed book 'Veel valse hoop' (Much False Hope).

Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) explains the timing,…

From Apartheid in South-Africa to 9/11 in the United States: there is not a single culture that is not shaped by the memory of war or conflict. The minor Cultural Memory of War and Conflict focuses on how such memory cultures influence and shape societies today.

This thesis seeks to examine the emergence of Persian novels and short stories during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

This volume provides an authoritative, cutting-edge resource on the characteristics of both technological and social change in warfare in the twenty-first century, and the challenges such change presents to international law.

Through a range of case studies spanning the post-Cold War period in Iraq, Moldova and Serbia, this book studies asymmetric conflicts where warring sides exhibit vast power differentials.

To mark its 75th anniversary, the Netherlands War Graves Foundation is publishing a portrait of a war victim every week this year. On 24 January the drawing of Irawan Soejono, a Leiden student and Indonesian resistance member, was unveiled at the Groenesteeg cemetery in Leiden, the place where Soejono…

Investigating the relations between Tupi Indigenous Knowledge, Museum Collections and the Dutch Colonization of Brazil

Her book ‘Veel valse hoop’ (Much False Hope) about the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands was immediately hailed as a seminal work. German historian Katja Happe gave the Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November. She is fascinated by what makes people take a stand.

Why does the past elicit this intense activity in the present? What does the past mean for the present, and what does it do to it? A WAR OF WORDS will engage this complex of Chinese claims to Manchu-Korean ancient history, South Korean reactions, public discourse and cultural expression in both states,…

During the ‘Hour of Remembrance’ on 4 May, the University community remembers its students and staff who were killed in the Second World War. It also looks at freedom and oppression today. Three questions for Sara Polak, chair of the Hour of Remembrance committee.

Through each individual decision, however small, people make history. This is what historian Katja Happe said in the Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November. She illustrated this with individual reactions to the persecution of Jews during the Second World War.

If Dutch cinema is examined in academic studies, the focus is usually on pre-war films or on documentaries, but the post-war fiction film has been sporadically addressed.

This book offers novel perspectives on the national and international dimensions of the post-war welfare state in Western Europe and North America.

Saeedeh Shahnahpur defended her thesis on 13 September 2016.

Are you thinking about studying Crisis and Security Management: War and Peace Studies? Learn more and watch the videos.

The Revolt in The Netherlands erupted in 1566 and tore apart the Low Countries. In Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566-1700 Jasper van der Steen explains how public memories of the Revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands in the South and the Dutch Republic in the North diverged and became the objects…

Tom Buitelaar is an Assistant Professor in the War, Peace & Justice programme of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. This paper discusses four important challenges to the involvement of UN peace operations in international criminal justice: its effects on host state relations, peace and justice…

The Afro-Asianism of the early Cold War has long remained buried under the narrative of Bandung, homogenising and subverting the different visions of post-colonial worldmaking that co-existed alongside the Bandung project.

In this article, Ben de Jong, research fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, examines the relationship between double agents and their handlers.

Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University) about the organisation of rebel and government auxiliaries in the civil war in Mozambique (1976–1992).

Research combining a conceptual and practical perspective within the field of teaching and learning second languages.

The Second Chance project aims to promote recovery and re-integration of entrepreneurs who have recently undergone bankruptcy.

In the last two decades, there have been heated public and scholarly debates in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands on the violent end of empire. Nevertheless, the broader comparative investigations into colonial counterinsurgency tend to leave atrocities such as torture, execution, and…

The four thousand war victims buried at the Netherlands Field of Honour at Loenen include a number of Leiden students who were in the Resistance. The War Graves Foundation is looking for volunteers to take part in a special event to honour the deceased.

PhD candidate Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart has received the Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds grant from the Leids Universiteits Fonds (LUF) to work on a research project focusing on the landscapes of the Second World War. ‘We will combine citizen science with deep learning to uncover traces of the c…

In this article, Thomas Maguire, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, examines why states use intelligence to influence external audiences.

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’

Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen, the well-known legal expert and Leiden University alumna, was for many years the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children. On 26 November she will deliver the Cleveringa lecture.

On Monday, April 24 the Austria Centre Leiden and the Leiden Jewish Studies Association hosted a special seminar with Prof. Edyta Gawron entitled “Politics and the Holocaust in Modern Poland.” Gawron is a historian and professor of Jewish Studies at Jagiellonian University in Kraków and a noted expert…

Every year on 26 November Leiden University commemorates the protest speech given by Professor Cleveringa against the Nazis. At least 663 students, staff and alumni of the University lost their lives during the Second World War, yet little was known about these victims. PhD candidate Adriënne Baars…

How do harrowing war experiences affect different generations? Students have made a video about poignant family stories. They interviewed other students and writer Dubravka Ugrešić. The premiere of the film was on 4 May during the online Hour of Remembrance. Watch this online memorial.

Who are open-source intelligence activists and how reliable are their contributions to public understanding of Russia’s war in Ukraine?

In Freedom on the Offensive, William Michael Schmidli illuminates how the Reagan administration's embrace of democracy promotion was a defining development in US foreign relations in the late twentieth century.

Holocaust scholars Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski will jointly hold the Cleveringa lecture on November 26. They were accused of defamation in Poland for a book they co-edited. How has this affected them? ‘This is an attempt to wear us down.’

This edited volume by Jeff Fynn-Paul pushes forward the debate on the role of entrepreneurs in making war and building states in Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

By the end of the sixteenth century, stories about the Revolt in the Low Countries (c. 1567-1648) had begun to spread throughout Europe. These stories had very different authors with very different intentions.

A new memorial stone on the facade of a student house in the Hugo de Grootstraat is a reminder of the dozens of Indonesian students who studied in Leiden before and during the Second World War. Some of them were active in the Resistance, which cost a number of them their lives.

Engin Kiliç defended his thesis on 11 june 2015

Almost 81 years after his famous protest speech against the German occupation, Leiden professor Rudolph Pabus Cleveringa will be remembered in his Groningen birthplace of Appingedam. A statue of him will be unveiled there on 12 November amid various other activities.

Osteoarchaeologists help forensic scientists solve crimes. They also study bone material from the Second World War in order to identify victims.

During the Dutch famine of 1944–45, people were much more creative in finding food than we thought. Biology student Tom Vorstenbosch discovered that people did not only eat flower bulbs at that time, but also radish leaves and wild plants such as sorrel and chickweed.

During World War II, the Nazi’s ordered a coastal defensive line to be built from the south of France to Norway. This Atlantik Wall aimed to defend their territories in continental Europe from an Allied naval invasion. The defensive line went right through the Dutch city of The Hague. The material remains…

How do first-hand narratives of war of commanders in the front line relate to the official narrative of the Eighty Years’ War?

Robert Pee, William Michael Schmidli (Eds.) This book posits that democracy promotion played a key role in the Reagan administration’s Cold War foreign policy.