Dr. Hinke Piersma
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Biography
Hinke Piersma is Director of Research and Deputy Director at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies. She studied history at the University of Amsterdam and obtained her PhD in 2005 with a thesis entitled De Drie van Breda. Duitse oorlogsmisdadigers in Nederlandse gevangenschap 1945-1989 (The Three of Breda: German war criminals in Dutch captivity, 1945-1989).
She has been affiliated with NIOD since 2003, where she leads projects arising from social issues as a senior researcher, with a particular focus on the disenfranchisement and restoration of rights of Jewish victims of persecution. She was project leader and/or co-supervisor for studies on the Association of Netherlands Municipalities, Administrative Amsterdam, and Disenfranchisement and Restoration of Rights in the municipality of Zwolle.
In 2015, her book Openstaande Rekeningen (Unpaid Bills) was published, an investigation into the municipal policy of Amsterdam, which she conducted together with her colleague Jeroen Kemperman. In 2017, she published Zussen (Sisters), the true story of a family that fell apart during the war, followed by the book Op eigen gezag (On Their Own Authority). Police resistance in wartime about police officers who sought their way in the difficult balancing act between institutional collaboration and personal resistance. In 2022, she completed her research on Jewish Rotterdam, for which she was project leader. She also worked on the biography Vergeet de trieste dagen (Forget the Sad Days) about David Simons, which was published in 2024.
In 2025, Piersma gave her inaugural lecture as professor of History of War, Conflict, and Memory at the University of Amsterdam.