Ontet Varon - Vasar

Born in Athens (1957), she is a historian and translator. She studied History and Archaeology at the Department of History and Archaeology of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Athens and pursued postgraduate studies in modern history at the Modern Greek Institute of the Sorbonne (Paris IV). She defended her doctoral dissertation at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Athens (1995), focusing on youth resistance organizations. She studied French literature and literary translation at the Center for Literary Translation of the French Institute of Athens. Her first book, now out of print, is "Greek Youth Press 1941-1945. Recording," vol. A'-B', published by IAEN, Athens 1987, see www.iaen.gr. Her research fields include the participation of Greek youth in the Resistance, the genocide of the Jews and its memory, camp literature, and the cultural identity of Sephardic Jews. She has published in journals such as "Anti," "O Politis," "Mnimon," "Modern Issues" (editorial board member), "Historein," "Nea Estia," and in newspapers "To Vima," "I Kathimerini," "I Avgi." She collaborates with the magazine "the books' journal." She is a member of the Society for the Study of Modern Hellenism "Mnimon" and was a founding member of the Society for the Study of Greek Jewry (1990-2000). She has participated in international conferences and published in collective volumes in France (see www.academia.edu). She has collaborated with the "Foundation for the Memory of Auschwitz" (Brussels), "Maison d'Izieu," "Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah" (Paris), and with university departments of Modern Greek studies in Strasbourg and INALCO. She taught the course "Greek History" at the Hellenic Open University (2001-2017) as a tutor. Since 2011, she has been teaching her seminar on "The Genocide of the Jews: History, Memory, Representations" at the Jewish Museum of Greece, as well as in the museum's annual seminars in Athens on "Teaching the Holocaust." She has published translations of French and Francophone literature. From 1995 to 2008, she published and edited the annual magazine "Translation," focusing on literary translation and translation studies. She taught translation at the Center for Literary Translation of the French Institute, at EKEMEL, and in the Postgraduate Translation-Translation Studies program at EKPA. She was honored with the distinction of Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of Arts and Letters) in 2006 by the French Minister of Culture.