Burns Alumna Sarah Wildman Wins Weitz Prize

By: Maia Curtis | 06/01/2010

Sarah Wildman (Burns 2008) won the Peter R. Weitz Prize for excellence and originality in reporting on Europe for a series she wrote for Slate. She conducted research for the series during her Burns fellowship. The $10,000 prize is awarded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and will be presented at an awards luncheon in July in Washington, D.C.

The five-part series, published in 2009, is about an investigation of the International Tracing Service (ITS), the world’s largest Holocaust archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The ITS holds some 50 million records, including biographical cards from displaced persons camps, files on forced labor and concentration camp inmates, correspondence between Nazi officers, transport lists, crime lists and other data. In 1955, the International Committee of the Red Cross took over management of the archives and it was closed to outsiders and researchers. For decades, the archives were shrouded in mystery and suspicion about why they were closed and what could be found in the files. They were finally opened to the public in 2008.

Wildman’s series is a riveting personal investigation into her family history while exploring the broader implications of these records—both to history and for survivors and relatives.

As one judge wrote, “The story of Bad Arolsen has been told, but not like this...with such detail, dogged pursuit, passion, and deeply felt, first-person storytelling. As opening the ITS ‘is a bit like completing a mosaic’ of the Holocaust, in the words of the director of the Buchenwald camp memorial, so does Wildman give us a sense of the mosaic of ITS, and, hopefully, spread greater awareness of it.”

Wildman is working on a book based on the series. She recently became a foreign policy writer for PoliticsDaily.com and writes a column for the Forward. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Guardian, Slate, The Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor, among others. Previously, she held staff positions at The New Republic and The American Prospect.

Latest News

ICFJ se Suma a Otras 9 Organizaciones Internacionales Para Presentar un Amicus Curiae en el Caso del Periodista Guatemalteco Encarcelado José Rubén Zamora

Un grupo de 10 organizaciones internacionales presentó esta semana un amicus curiae ante la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Guatemala en el caso del periodista José Rubén Zamora Marroquín. El amicus, presentado el 26 de marzo, argumenta que el retorno de Zamora a prisión preventiva constituye una violación de sus derechos fundamentales bajo el derecho guatemalteco e internacional, e insta a la Corte a otorgar un recurso de amparo pendiente y permitir que el Sr. Zamora lleve su proceso bajo medidas sustitutivas.

ICFJ Joins 9 Other International Organizations in Submitting Amicus Brief in Case of Imprisoned Guatemalan Journalist José Rubén Zamora

A group of 10 international organizations submitted an amicus curiae brief to Guatemala’s Supreme Court in the case of journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín. The brief, filed on March 26, argues that Zamora’s return to preventive detention constitutes a violation of his fundamental rights under Guatemalan and international law, and urges the Court to grant a pending amparo appeal and allow Zamora to return to house arrest.

Press Freedom on Campus: Why it Matters and What Student Journalists Need Most

In February, ICFJ partnered with Vanderbilt University and Freedom Forum, with support from the Lumina Foundation, to bring university faculty and students, international and U.S. journalists, and media leaders together for a discussion about the importance of press freedom in democratic societies. Participants stressed how U.S.-based journalists can learn from the experiences of their colleagues abroad, and they dived into the challenges campus reporters face, such as a lack of funding and harassment from fellow students, offered advice for engaging audiences, and more.