Aiko Hillen, M.A.

• Tasks in the project

  • Assistance to the project management
  • Concept, design and coordination of the project website
  • Writing, editing and proofreading of texts and articles 
  • Administration and organization
  • Archive research

• Studies

  2018 to 2023: Master's degree in Public History at the University of Cologne

  Master's thesis: Visibility as political protest. The Êzîdis from Turkey and their struggle for recognition as a religiously persecuted minority in Germany.

  2012 to 2018: Bachelor's degree in History and Philosophy at the University of Cologne

• Professional career

  • 2023-2024: Research Assistant (WHK) at the Chair of Modern History at the University of Cologne under Prof. Dr. Habbo Knoch
  • 2019-2022: Research Assistant (WHB) in the project ‘The Massacres in Occupied Italy (1943-1945): Integrating the Perpetrators’ Memories’
  • 2019-2023: Research Assistant (WHB) at the Chair of Modern History at the University of Cologne under Prof. Dr. Habbo Knoch
  • 2017 and 2019: Internships at the Holocaust research organization "Yahad - In Unum" in Paris

• Research and fields of interest

  • History of the Nazi era and the Holocaust
  • Migration of the Êzîdis (Yazidis) from Turkey to Germany
  • Oral history
  • Childhood history

• Publications

  • “Taken to German Villages and Liquidated.” The “Selbstschutz” Organization and the Bogdanovka Massacre in 1941, in: Eastern European Holocaust Studies 1 (2), 2023, S. 551-587. https://doi.org/10.1515/eehs-2022-0007. 
  • Tagungsbericht: War, Violence and the Image of Soldiers: Between Private Memories and Public Representation, in: H-Soz-Kult, 30.06.2020, www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-127362.