THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Dr. Joan Ringelheim
May 29, 1939 – October 22, 2021
“The Holocaust was not about sex, but men did oppress women sexually. To ignore the plight of women is, in reality, to ignore over half of the Jewish population.”
Philosopher and Historian. Research Director of the Permanent Exhibition, Director of Education and Director of Oral History at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where she oversaw its survivor testimony collection. B.A. Boston University, 1961 with a major in History. PhD in Philosophy from Boston University in 1968.

More About Joan:
- Obituary, Boston Globe
- Joan Ringelheim’s Early Catalogue of Holocaust Testimony. Dr. Ringelheim was a pioneering scholar of women and the Holocaust and a trailblazer in the development of oral history, especially as it pertained to the Holocaust. One of her many accomplishments in this field was the publication of the earliest catalogues of audio and video collections of Holocaust testimony.
- Joan Ringelheim papers, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Ringelheim, Joan. “Women and the Holocaust: A Reconsideration of Research.” Signs, vol. 10, no. 4, University of Chicago Press, 1985, pp. 741–61
- Wikipedia