Yehuda Bauer (Hebrew: יהודה באואר) (born 1926) is a historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He is a Professor of Holocaust Studies at the
Avraham HarmanAvraham Harman was an Israeli diplomat and academic administrator.-Biography:Born in London in the United Kingdom, he received a law degree from Wadham College, Oxford in 1935...
Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
.
Biography
Born and raised in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
,
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Bauer was fluent at an early age in the
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian. - Official status :Czech is widely...
,
SlovakThe Slovak language , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages ....
and
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
languages, later learning
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
,
YiddishYiddish is a non-territorial High German language of Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world...
,
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
and
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
. His father had strong
ZionistZionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
convictions and during the 1930s tried to raise money to get his family to the British Mandate of Palestine. On March 15, 1939, the family
migrated to PalestineAliyah is the immigration of Jews to Eretz Israel. It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology, and a value in almost all movements of Judaism...
.
Bauer attended high school in
HaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 264,900. Haifa has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs giving an example for peaceful co-existence. The Arab population used to be predominantly Christian, while some of the Jewish...
and at sixteen, inspired by his history teacher, Rachel Krulik, decided to dedicate himself to studying history. Upon completing high school, he joined the
PalmachThe Palmach was the regular fighting force of the Haganah, the unofficial army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
. He attended
Cardiff UniversityCardiff University is a leading university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing the best university education in Wales...
,
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union...
on a British scholarship, interrupting his studies to fight in the
1948 Arab-Israeli WarThe 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known by Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.The war...
, after which he completed his degree.
Bauer returned to Israel to join
KibbutzA kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
ShovalShoval is a kibbutz in the northern Negev desert in Israel. Located near the Bedouin city of Rahat, it falls under the jurisdiction of Bnei Shimon Regional Council.-History:...
and began his graduate work in history at Hebrew University. He received his doctorate in 1960 for a thesis on the British Mandate of Palestine. The following year, he began teaching at the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University.
He served on the central committee of
MapamMapam was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.-History:...
, then the junior partner party of Israel's ruling
MapaiMapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968.-Background:...
(Israel Labour Party), and was a visiting professor at
Brandeis UniversityBrandeis University is a private research university with a liberal arts focus, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate...
,
Yale UniversityYale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
, Richard Stockton College, and
Clark UniversityClark University is a private research university and liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts.Founded in 1887, it is the oldest institution founded as an all-graduate university. Clark now also educates undergraduates...
. He was the founding editor of the
Journal for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and served on the editorial board of the
Encyclopaedia of the HolocaustThe Encyclopedia of the Holocaust was published in 1990, in tandem Hebrew and English editions, by Yad Vashem , the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Authority....
, published by
Yad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament.The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and...
in 1990.
In recent years, Bauer has received recognition for his work in the field of Holocaust studies and the prevention of
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
. In 1998, he was awarded the
Israel PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
, for "history of the Jewish people", primarily in connection with his Holocaust studies. In 2001, he was elected a Member of the
Israel Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesThe Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was set up in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between scholars from the sciences and humanities in Israel, to advise the government on research projects of national importance, and to promote excellence. It comprises...
. Currently, he serves as academic adviser to Yad Vashem, academic adviser to the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, and senior adviser to the Swedish Government on the International Forum on Genocide Prevention.
Holocaust
Bauer is a respected authority on the subjects of the Holocaust,
antisemitismAntisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion....
—a word he insists be written unhyphenated—and the Jewish
resistance movementA resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to fighting an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign nation through either the use of physical force, or nonviolence. The term resistance is generally used to designate movement considered...
during the Holocaust, and has argued for a wider definition of the term. In Bauer's view, resistance to the Nazis comprised not only physical opposition, but any activity that gave the Jewish people dignity and humanity in the most humiliating and inhumane conditions. Furthermore, Bauer has disputed the popular view that most Jews went to their deaths passively—
"like sheep to the slaughter." He argues that, given the conditions in which the Jews of
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
had to live under and endure, what is surprising is not how little resistance there was, but rather how much.
With regard to the
Functionalism versus intentionalismFunctionalism versus intentionalism is a historiographical debate about the origins of the Holocaust as well as most aspects of the Third Reich, such as foreign policy...
question, Bauer started out as an Intentionalist, but is now the leading proponent of a synthesis of the two schools. Bauer argues that on the basis of
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
's memorandum of May 25, 1940 to
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
regarding the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question"—in which Himmler states his rejection of "the Bolshevik method of physical annihilation of a people out of inner conviction as un-German and impossible," and goes on to recommend the
Madagascar PlanThe Madagascar Plan was a suggested policy of the Nazi government to relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar.-Origins:The evacuation of European Jews to the island of Madagascar was not a new concept...
as the desired "territorial solution" of the "Jewish Question"—proves that there was no master plan for
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
going back to the days when Hitler wrote
Mein KampfMein Kampf, in English: My Struggle, is a book by Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology...
. However, Bauer takes issue with Functionalist historians, such as
Hans MommsenHans Mommsen is a left-wingGerman historian. He is the twin brother of Wolfgang Mommsen.-Biography:He was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grandson of the Roman historian Theodor Mommsen. He studied German, history and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg,...
, who argue that the lead in the Holocaust was taken entirely by lower level officials with little involvement by the leadership in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Bauer believes that Hitler was the key figure in causing
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
, and that at some point in the later half of 1941, he gave a series of orders for the genocide of the entire Jewish people. Bauer has pointed to the discovery of an entry in Himmler’s notebook from December 18, 1941 where Himmler wrote down the question "What to do with the Jews of Russia?". According to the same notebook, Hitler’s response to the question was "Exterminate them as partisans." In Bauer’s view, this is as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler ordering the Holocaust.". Bauer believes that, at about the same time, Hitler gave further verbal orders for the Holocaust, but that unfortunately for historians, nobody bothered to write them down.
Bauer has often criticized what he considers to be deleterious trends in writing about the Holocaust. He has often taken exception to those who argue that the Holocaust was just another genocide. Though he agrees that there have been other genocides in history that have targeted groups other than Jews, he argues that the Holocaust was the worst single case of genocide in history, in which every member of a nation was selected for annihilation, and that it therefore holds a special place in human history. These views have caused clashes between Bauer and the American historian
Henry FriedlanderHenry Friedlander is an American historian of the Holocaust noted for his arguments in favor of broadening the scope of victims of the Holocaust....
who argues that Roma and the disabled were just as much victims of the Holocaust as Jews were.
Another trend Bauer has denounced is the representation of the Holocaust as a mystical experience outside the normal range of human understanding. He has argued against the work of some
OrthodoxOrthodox Judaism is a formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmudic texts and as subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim.Orthodox...
rabbis and theologians who say that the Holocaust was the work of God and part of a mysterious master plan for the Jewish people. In Bauer’s view, those who seek to promote this line of thinking argue that God is just and good, while simultaneously bringing down the Holocaust on the Jewish people. Bauer has argued that a God who inflicts the
ShoahShoah may refer to:*The Holocaust*Shoah * A Shoah Foundation...
on his Chosen People is neither good nor just. Moreover, Bauer has argued that this line of reasoning robs
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
of his
evilEvil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe what are seen as subjectively harmful deeds that are labeled as such to steer moral support. Evil is usually contrasted with good, which describes acts that are subjectively beneficial to the observer. In some religions, evil is an active...
: if Hitler was just fulfilling God’s will regarding the Jews, then he was merely an instrument of divine wrath and did not choose to be evil.
Bauer has criticized the work of the American political scientist
Daniel GoldhagenDaniel Jonah Goldhagen is an American author and former Associate Professor of Political Science and Social Studies at Harvard University...
, who writes that the Holocaust was the result of the allegedly unique “eliminationist” antisemitic culture of the Germans. He has accused Goldhagen of Germanophobic racism, and of selecting only evidence favorable to his thesis. For example, Bauer has written that, according to the 1931 German census, about 50,000 German Jews were living in mixed marriages with Christians, giving Germany one of the highest rates of mixed marriages in the world at the time. In Bauer’s opinion, if the average German had been full of murderous “eliminationist" antisemitism, as Goldhagen argues, there would have been fewer mixed marriages. Goldhagen in his turn has accused Bauer of not understanding his arguments properly and of being jealous of what Goldhagen considers to be his discovery of the “key” that explains the entire Holocaust.
Bauer is also known for defending
Rudolf KastnerRudolf Israel Kastner was a Jewish-Hungarian journalist and lawyer who became known for helping Jews escape Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust...
's decision to not publicize the
Vrba-Wetzler reportThe Vrba-Wetzler report, also known as the Vrba-Wetzler statement, the Auschwitz Protocols, and the Auschwitz notebook, is a 32-page document about the German Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland during the Holocaust...
to the Hungarian Jews being deported to Auschwitz.
Professor Bauer is one of those who paints a positive picture of people like Sally Mayer, whom others consider to have been a major obstructor of rescue. Unlike many historians, for example Professor
David WymanDavid S. Wyman is the author of several books on the responses of the United States to Nazi Germany's persecution of and programs to exterminate Jews....
and Dr.
Rafael MedoffDr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is based in Washington, D.C. and focuses on issues related to America's response to the Holocaust.-Academic career:...
, Professor Bauer believes
Hillel KookHillel Kook , also known as Peter Bergson , was a Revisionist Zionist activist, politician, and prominent member of the Irgun.-Early life:...
(Peter Bergson) and his rescue group saved no one. Professor Bauer also exclaims in one of his books that it is very surprising that an ultra-orthodox Jew like Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl could think of a practical rescue step such as a request to bomb the railway to Auschwitz. Professor Bauer also believes that people must go to
Yad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament.The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and...
to learn the
right way of understanding the Holocaust. Many others believe that complex phenomena such as the Holocaust require a marketplace of ideas rather than a centrally controlled view, however well intentioned and enlightened it may be.
Conquest of Canaan
In reference to the conquest of
CanaanCanaan is an ancient term for a region encompassing modern-day Israel and Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, plus adjoining coastal lands and parts of Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt...
by the ancient Israelites, which resulted in the massacre of the Amalekites and Midianites, genocide historian Adam Jones quotes Jerusalem-based Holocaust Studies Professor
Yehuda BauerYehuda Bauer is a historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He is a Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-Biography:...
: "As a Jew, I must live with the fact that the civilization I inherited ... encompasses the call for genocide in its canon."
Possibility of genocide in Palestine-Israel
While speaking to a group of visitors to Israel in 2003, Bauer stated that "What we have here between the Israelis and the Palestinians is an armed conflict - if one side becomes stronger there is a chance of genocide." When one of the visitors asked, "Am I to understand that you think Israel could commit genocide on the Palestinian people?," Bauer answered "Yes," and added, "Just two days ago, extremist settlers passed out flyers to rid Arabs from this land. Ethnic cleansing results in mass killing." Bauer also noted opinion polls showing a high percentage of Palestinians want to get rid of Jews.
Christian-Jewish relations
Concerning Pope Benedict XVI's pilgrimage to Israel and Jordan, Bauer argued that the Pope meant well and tried to walk the tightrope between Arab-Palestinian-Muslim and Palestinian-Christian enmity to Israel and the Jews on the one hand, and the collective trauma of Jews in Israel and elsewhere regarding the Holocaust on the other.
External links
- Bio at ADL
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States of America. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and...
- interview at KQED Forum January 11, 2005 (audio)
- Address to the Bundestag January 27, 1998
- 1998 Interview (PDF
Portable Document Format is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system....
)
- 1993 Interview
- at Yad VaShem
- at HUJI
- Lectures at Researchchannel
Further reading
- Marrus, Michael
Michael Robert Marrus is a Canadian historian of France, the Holocaust and Jewish history. He was born in Toronto and received his BA at the University of Toronto in 1963 and his MA and PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 and 1968. He teaches at the University of Toronto...
The Holocaust In History, Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987.
- Rosenbaum, Ron
Ron Rosenbaum is an Jewish-American journalist and author.Rosenbaum, born into a Jewish family, grew up in Bay Shore, New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and won a Carnegie Fellowship to attend Yale's graduate program in English Literature, though he dropped out after taking one...
Explaining Hitler: the search for the origins of his evil, New York: Random House, 1998.