A Tribute to Professor Yehuda Bauer

Yehuda Bauer (z”l) was much more than his many well-deserved titles, including (but not limited to) Professor Emeritus of History and Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem, and Honorary Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. He was also a friend and mentor.

Born in Prague in 1926, Yehuda and his family left Czechoslovakia on the same day it was annexed by the Nazis, March 15, 1939. Their route took them to Poland and then to Romania before they finally settled in British Mandate Palestine later that year.

As a high schooler in Haifa, Yehuda fell in love with history. He joined the Palmach and later won a scholarship to study at Cardiff University in Wales. He returned to Israel to fight in the 1948-49 Israel War. He later moved to Kibbutz Shoval and completed his doctoral studies at Hebrew University. Yehuda married, had a loving family, and led a deep and rich life spent with many friends from around the world. All who knew him held him in the highest respect. Many of us were fortunate to have his friendship and spend time with him.

The richness of Yehuda’s personal life matched his professional career. While Yehuda’s doctoral dissertation focused on the Mandate, he shifted his focus to the Holocaust following a conversation with the well-known partisan hero, Zionist leader, and poet Abba Kovner. As Yehuda told us in his 2015 testimony, he was scared to study the Holocaust. Kovner told him it was necessary to study the subject because it was the most important event in Jewish history and that fear was “a very good starting point.”

By choosing to study the Holocaust, Yehuda Bauer made an extraordinary contribution to humanity. A true polyglot, his fluency in Czech, Slovak, German, English, Hebrew, Yiddish, French, and Polish allowed him to utilize a range of archives essential for understanding this history and to engage in the serious scholarly discussion needed to open our eyes to the truly international aspects of this subject. Over the course of his career, he published more than forty books, was the doctoral advisor to some of the foremost scholars in our field, helped establish several of the most important journals in the field, and won more academic prizes than anyone can count.

His awards and distinctions include the Israel Prize for “History of the Jewish People” in 1998, election as Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2001, the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award from the city of Jerusalem in 2008, and the 2016 EMET Prize in the Humanities. His publications include From Diplomacy to Resistance (1970), My Brother’s Keeper (1974), Flight and Rescue (1975), The Holocaust in Historical Perspective (1978), The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness (1979), ed. The Holocaust as Historical Experience (1981), American Jewry and the Holocaust (1982), Out of the Ashes (1989), Jews for Sale? (1995), Rethinking the Holocaust (2001), The Death of the Shtetl (2010), The Jews: A Contrary People (2014), The World and the Jews (2021), as well as dozens of other books and at least one hundred journal and other articles.

In 2015, we were fortunate to secure Yehuda’s testimony as part of our collection. The interview lasted five hours. If you have time, I encourage you to watch it. Having spent much of my professional life in conversation with Yehuda, I can assure you that you will not only learn much from him but also grow to appreciate this history and its meaning more thanks to him.

In many ways, the entire field of Holocaust education, remembrance, and research is part of Yehuda’s legacy. Speaking personally, he was ever present in my studies. Although generic histories of Nazi Germany first drew me to this subject, Yehuda’s three volumes on the activities of the American Joint Distribution Committee opened my eyes to the true study of history. For historians of my generation, many of the books we read in graduate school were Yehuda’s contributions. If we were not reading Yehuda, there was a good chance we were reading the works of historians trained and mentored by Yehuda.

Yehuda was also remarkably prescient. In 1980, he wrote, “Antisemitism is, as we know, an irrational response to rational challenges. It arises in periods of crisis, as a 'short-cut' solution, thus avoiding the need to meet real problems with realistic action. The conjunction of a number of major world crises would seem to be an ideal breeding ground for the revival of the antisemitic stereotype.”

At the time, Yehuda was one of only a few voices in the wilderness. His scholarship, insights and his frank and indefatigable willpower led to something remarkable. He was, in many ways, the force that led to the creation of what is now known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. There, he served primarily as the first Advisor to the IHRA before becoming its honorary chair for life. World leaders came to Yehuda to seek counsel on how to ensure better education on the Holocaust, commemoration efforts that would remind the wider public important of the Shoah, and research initiatives that would always keep the subject alive. How many historians have had prime ministers, presidents, and even kings seek them out? They might not have liked the honesty of his guidance, but he always worked in service to the truth and to ensure that the world never forgot what happened during the terrible years of the Shoah.

As my friend and one of Yehuda’s students, David Silberklang once wrote, Yehuda’s intellect and insight were the result of his clear-eyed and objectivity. He looked at the Holocaust “at eye level, without tinted lenses, mystification, or ideological prejudice as much as that is possible, taking the Jewish eyewitnesses to events seriously.” These are the same values we uphold, and we need them now more than ever.

The questions Yehuda asked also need attention. He was largely responsible for initiating many critical conversations needed today, including the uniqueness of the Holocaust, the roles of perpetrators, the experiences of survivors and victims, the complexities of rescue, and the cynicism with which some states and movements misuse the history of the Holocaust.

When we engage with the Holocaust, Yehuda’s influence will always remain, guiding us to constantly question. To take nothing for granted. To suffer no distortion of history. To value the archive and to never be afraid to engage in civil discourse in pursuit of the truth.

At 98 years of age, we were fortunate to spend many years with Yehuda. It was still not enough. We will miss his mentorship, sense of humor, and friendship, and Yehuda Bauer’s memory will always be a blessing.

—Dr. Robert J. Williams, Finci-Viterbi Executive Director, the USC Shoah Foundation