DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  Modern European History: Central/Eastern Europe

Thematic Field(s):  History of Science, Technology, and Medicine; Gender and Sexuality History; War and Empire in History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Nazi persecution of Burgenland Roma; experimental sterilization of women in Nazi concentration camps; and the construction of postwar pronatalism

Biography

Tiarra Maznick is currently the Assistant Director and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University (HEFNU). She received her B.A. (2010) from Smith College in German Studies and Russian Civilization, and M.A. (2020) and PhD (2024)  from UMass Amherst in German and Scandinavian Studies. As a scholar of reproduction under Nazism, Maznick researches sterilization, eugenics, sexuality, reproductive politics, and pronatalism, during and after the Holocaust.

Outside of research, Dr Maznick can be found running, hiking, or kayaking with her dog, Karadi, around Evanston.

Publications

• Maznick, Tiarra. “‘I was so drunk with her enchanting words that I could not find my bed anymore’: Remembering Same-Sex Desire in Block 10,” Special Issue: Queer experiences in the Holocaust, Holocaust Studies, February 2026, online ahead of print.
• Maznick, Tiarra. “Revisiting the Sterilizations at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp: A Victim-Based History.” Eastern European Holocaust Studies, Special Issue: Gender and the Holocaust, vol 3, no 2, 2025, pp. 247-286.
• Maznick, Tiarra. “European Infertility Studies Conducted Towards Nazi Reparations, 1946-1978.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, June 2025, online ahead of print.
• Maznick, Tiarra, Alexandra M. Szabo, and Joey Rauschenberger. “State of the Research: Nazi Sterilizations of Romani Peoples,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies (forthcoming).
• Maznick, Tiarra. “Carro, Cane, Pantaloni: Introducing Lore Shelley.” Eastern European Holocaust Studies, Special Issue: Women Historians, Spring 2026 (forthcoming).
• Maznick, Tiarra. “Holocaust Testimony and Jewish Reproductive Futurities.” AJS Perspectives, Summer 2026 (forthcoming).

Teaching Interests

Gender and the Holocaust; science, medicine, and reproduction under the Nazi regime; Feminist Technology and Science; gender and genocide; Romani Holocaust; pronatalism, antinatalism, and reproductive politics; history of sexuality; eugenics and sexology; Feminist, Queer, and Critical Theory; (dis)ability and the media; reproductive dystopias; graphic novels.

Awards and Honors

Dr Maznick delivered the 2026 Annual Winter Lecture for the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University (HEFNU), titled “The June 1939 Transport of 440 Romani Women and Girls from Austria’s Burgenland: A Microhistory.” Her research has been supported by the Coalition of Women in German, HEFNU, and the University of Massachusetts Graduate School. She has also accepted fellowships at Keene State, the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, HEFNU, Södertörn University, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage.