Mirjam Zadoff to lead Austria’s House of History

Historian Mirjam Zadoff will take over as director of the House of Austrian History, a museum, on March 1, 2027, the Austrian National Library announced, according to ORF. The museum is structurally part of the library.

Zadoff will succeed founding director Monika Sommer. Twelve people applied for the position: ten from Austria and two from abroad.

Oliver Rathkolb, chair of the museum’s scientific advisory board, said Zadoff’s experience, international standing and ideas would help raise the institution’s profile. Born in Innsbruck in 1974, she studied history and Jewish studies in Vienna, completed her doctorate in 2006 and qualified as a university lecturer in Munich in 2013.

She later held a chair in history and Jewish studies at Indiana University Bloomington in the United States. She currently teaches at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Technical University of Munich, and has led the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism since 2018.

Her research includes Austrian, European and Jewish history, National Socialism and the Holocaust, museum and commemorative practices, and approaches to education. The House of Austrian History opened in 2018 in the Neue Burg at Vienna’s Heldenplatz and is due to move to the MuseumsQuartier. No date has been set; the move depends on funding. Preparations for the museum’s content are continuing.