While conducting research for my second monograph on the Janowska camp, I began to notice some interesting relationships among the SS men who both played key roles in and passed through the camp.  Many of these men were ethnic Germans (residents of countries outside of Germany).  Others seemed to have followed similar career paths and geographic journeys.  Still others cycled in and out of the Janowska camp to other camps and ghettos throughout the region and overlapped with each other.

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As a result of these observations, I began to compile spatial, temporal, and biographical data about a large number of men who passed through the region and the camp before, during, and after the war.

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Movement data for SS man Peter Blum

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In attempting to begin interpreting this increasingly large dataset, I turned to social network analysis as a way to analyze the connections in this group of people.  Eventually, I hope to create a GIS that will visualize the individual movements over space (and the data set is structured to be mapped dynamically over time and space.)  

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In the meantime, I have used the Gephi platform to build a social network visualization that links individuals and locations.  With it, one can see, for example, related communities of individuals and the closeness of those relationships.  At its most basic level, the social network shows individuals with locations in common and locations with individuals in common.  I am still working with more complex algorithms and manipulations of the network and am excited to share more when I am ready.