Danielle Angres
Historian, Genealogist, Polyglot, and Memory Researcher
Welcome! I am a researcher and family historian with a particular focus on Central and Eastern European Jewish history and genealogy, work shaped by both academic training and a family story that runs through it directly. My grounding is in German/Prussian genealogy, drawn from years of personal family research, though my language background opens that focus up to other parts of Europe as well.I hold a graduate degree in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and spent time at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Research and Information Reference, doing historical research and public information services on victims and survivors. That academic and professional grounding feeds directly into my own genealogy work: I have spent years tracing my family's history from Wrocław (Breslau) and the Prussian region around Oleśno (formerly Kreis Rosenberg O.S.), through their flight from Nazi Germany in 1938, to Colombia: corresponding with archives, cemetery caretakers, and museums across Poland and Germany, and piecing together records where the official archives fall short.Memory work, how communities and cultures publicly remember historical trauma, is another thread that runs through all of this, and it is where my art background comes back into the picture. During my MA, I wrote on Holocaust memorial monuments and countermonuments, drawn to how form and material can carry historical memory in ways text alone cannot. Transmitting survivor stories, making sure they're carried forward and not lost, is part of that same commitment.I am also a globetrotting creative, which shapes how I do this work as much as anything else. Originally from New York City, I have lived in Liège, DC, Paris, Barcelona, Miami, and now Bogotá — and I bring that same curiosity to research as I do to a new city: I hold an undergraduate degree in fine art (painting), and I am a native English speaker, fluent in French and Spanish, with a basic grounding in German (from a year of study plus a lot of self-teaching from working directly with archival documents, which helps given how much of that research involves German records) and beginner/intermediate Japanese. Multilingual archival research, in particular, is where the languages earn their keep.Beyond the research, I care about history, animal and human rights, literature, travel, and (not incidentally) Shiba Inus. I share my life with Tenshin (天心), my lively young adult Shiba, and carry the memory of Shiki (四季) and Hoshi (星), both dearly loved and deeply missed.Right now, I am looking to grow further into genealogy, history, and memory work — research projects, archival collaborations, family history writing, or partnerships with museums, archives, and organizations doing this kind of work. If you are working on something in this space, or just want to talk about Central and Eastern European Jewish genealogy, memory and memorialization, or (of course) Shiba Inus, I would love to hear from you.