Rosa de Jong is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at the University of Amsterdam, and a guest researcher at the KITLV (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) and at NIOD (Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies).

Her NWO-funded research project ‘From European ports to Caribbean homes: Second World War refugees in global transit’ investigates the refugees who fled during the Second World War from the Netherlands via different European ports to the Caribbean, ending up mainly in Jamaica, Suriname, Curaçao and Cuba. In this project she researches how the power balance between governmental structures and the agency of the refugees influenced their flight and subsequent fate. Intersections of class, race, gender, religion and nationality are pivotal for understanding the interactions between these refugees, Caribbean citizens and the European national and imperial powers; therefore, intersectionality is an overarching approach for this project.

From January through August 2022 Rosa de Jong was the Alexander Grass Memorial Fellow at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Previously, she worked at the KITLV as junior researcher for the project on the colonial and slavery past of the city of Rotterdam. She studied History and Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and concluded her RMA in History with a thesis on the group of refugees arriving in Suriname during the Second World War.

'Tiener op de vlucht, het verhaal van Truus Beffie', Oorlogbronnen.nl, (2022)

‘Looking for Agency in Transnational Refugee Trajectories during the Second World War’, Itinerario Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions, 45.1 (2021).

'Joodse vluchtelingen vinden veiligheid in Suriname', Oorlogsbronnen.nl, (2021).

‘Elisabeth Temmes: marktvrouw of politieke kracht?’, Historica, 43.2, (2020).

‘Gangaram Panday, Tulawati Devi (1948-2016)’, in: Els Kloek (red.), 1001 vrouwen in de twintigste eeuw (Vantilt, 2018).

‘Bruyning, Alexandrina Paulina (1896-1980)’, in: Els Kloek (red.), 1001 vrouwen in de twintigste eeuw (Vantilt, 2018).

‘Joodse bronnen over Nederlandse vluchtelingen in Suriname’, Archievenblad, 5 (2018).

Conference papers and presentations (selection)

'Second World War Refugees' daily lives in Caribbean Internment', Historicizing the Refugee Experience, Second Annual International Seminar in Historical Refugee Studies, GHI Washington DC. (2022)

'Interned Europeans on a short retreat: Jewish Refugees in Montego Bay', 53rd Annual Meeting of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Online, The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. (2022)

‘Religious impact of Jewish Second World War refugees in the Caribbean’, 15th Symposium of the History and Culture of the Jews in the Netherlands, Menasseh Ben Israel Instituut (2021).

'Een Surinaams schriftje', Night of Utrecht History (2020).

‘Moesje Temmes: marktvrouw of politieke kracht? Suriname 1938’, Night of History in the Rijksmuseum (2019).

‘Paramaribo as a safe harbor during the Second World War’, 51^st Annual meeting Association of Caribbean Historians, University of Curaçao (2019).

'Gevlucht naar Curaçao: Joodse vluchtelingen in WOII’, Series: 50 jaar Nationaal Archief, National Archive Curaçao (2019).

‘The voyage of the Nyassa’, 10th Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries, University of Antwerp (2017).

Ancillary activities

Advisory board of DRIFT Wijsgerig Festival, 2019-current.

Final editor of Holland Historisch Tijdschrift, 2019-2022.

Editor in chief of Skript Historisch Tijdschrift, 2017-2018.

Editor of Skript Historisch Tijdschrift, 2016-2017.

Organizing board of DRIFT Wijsgerig Festival, 2014-2016.