Leon Poliakov

Leon Poliakov , born the November 25th 1910 with Saint-Pétersbourg and deceased with Orsay on December 8th 1997, was a Historien French whose work largely concerned the Shoah and the Antisémitisme.

Biographical elements

Born in a family from the Jewish Middle-class Russian emigrated in France in 1920 to flee the Revolution Bolshevik, it saw a few years in Germany where it attends adolescent the rise of the Nazisme, then settles definitively in Paris where it makes studies of right and letters. It engages in the French Army at the beginning of the Second world war, saw the rout, is made prisoner by the Germans with Valéry Saint in Caux on June 13rd, 1940 with its battalion, escapes three months later from the Frontstalag of Doullens and enters the resistance. In 1943, he becomes secretary of the Rabbin Zalman Schneersohn and founds with his/her Isaac cousin the Information center Jewish Contemporary, which is dedicated to collect the documentary evidence of the Shoah, which is worth to him, after the allied victory, to assist Edgar Faure, chief of the French delegation to the Procès of Nuremberg.

Naturalized French in 1947, Leon Poliakov publishes, four years later, the Bréviaire of the hatred , delivers which will be the first great study devoted to the policy of extermination of the Jews carried out by the Nazis. Its diving in the German files, innumerable testimonys which it collects and five years of efforts make it possible him to update the wheels relentless of the ideology and the technique which made possible the Shoah. The Bréviaire of hatred will be prefaced by François Mauriac, and regularly updated by its author to the wire of the republications, until 1993. Poliakov is also the first historian to blame the attitude of the Pape Pie XII and of the the Vatican during the Holocauste.

Mû by the will to try to answer the " question; Pourquoi did one want to kill me? " and decided to go up to the roots, Leon Poliakov devotes himself then to his vast Histoire of the anti-semitism in five volumes, energy of the Antiquité to the XXe century. Arts doctor and research director of CNRS, his work will carry finally on the persecuted minorities, the Racisme, in all his forms, and his origins in general. It publishes its memories in 1981 “the Inn of the Musicians”, including one broad part is devoted to its past of Résistant and to the thousand adventures lived during the Occupation Nazie. Its works will be translated in many languages and finally into Russian, at the end of its life and its greater joy. It is made knight of the Légion of honor in 1989.

Publications

the Condition of the Jews in France under the Italian Occupation , contemporary foreword of Justin Godard, foreword of Isaac Schneersohn, Paris, Editions of the Center, “Information center Jewish”, NO3, 1946.
the yellow Star , contemporary foreword of Justin Godart, foreword by Isaac Schneersohn, Paris, Editions of the Information center Jewish contemporary, “Information center Jewish”, No 2,1949; rééd. the yellow Star. The situation of the Jews in France under the Occupation. The legislations Nazis and Vichy-native , Paris, Grancher Editions, 1999. Joins together three texts: the book the yellow Star (1949), a long article in Historia (1968) and a communication of 1980 with the international symposium of Cerisy.
the Breviary of Hatred. IIIe Reich and the Jews , foreword of François Mauriac, Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1951; last ED. of pocket: Paris, Presses-Pocket, 1993.
History of the anti-semitism , T.I: Of Christ to the Jews of Court , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1955; , supplemented, corrected, re-examined shortened edition and updated: Paris, Hatchet, “Plural”, 1981; Paris, Editions of the Threshold, “Points History”, 1991,2 vol. (T. 1. The Age of the faith; T. 2. The Age of science).
Little story of the anti-semitism , Paris, Counter of the Book of Keren Hasefer, 1956.
with Joseph Wulf, IIIe Reich and the Jews , (1955) French translation with the assistance of the CDJC, Paris, Gallimard, 1959.
History of the anti-semitism , T. II: De Mahomet with Marranes , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1961.
the Lawsuit of Jerusalem , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1963.
Auschwitz , Paris, Julliard, “Files”, 1964.
Jewish Bankers and the Holy See, of XIIIe at the XVIIe century , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1967.
History of the anti-semitism , volume III: Of Voltaire with Wagner , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1968.
Of the antisionism to the anti-semitism , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1969.
the Aryan Myth. Test on the sources of racism and nationalisms , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1971; last ED. of pocket, Paris, Presses-Pocket, 1994.
the Lawsuit of Nuremberg , Paris, Julliard-Gallimard, “Files”, 1971.
Jews and our history , Paris, Flammarion, 1973. Collection of articles.
(to dir.), Men and animals. Talks on racism , Paris - $the Hague - New York, Sheep, 1975.
with Christian Delacampagne and Patrick Girard, Racism , Paris, Seghers, 1976.
History of the anti-semitism , volume IV: suicidal Europe (1870-1933) , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1977.
(to dir.), Neither Jew nor Greek. Talks on racism , Paris - $the Hague - New York, Sheep, 1978.
diabolic Causality, T. 1: Test on the origin of persecutions , T. 1, Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1980; rééd. of the 2 volumes in 1 volume, 2006, with a foreword of Pierre-André Taguieff.
Short history of the genocide Nazi , Paris, Hatchet, 1980.
(to dir.), the prohibited Couple. Talks on racism. The dialectical one of the sociocultural otherness and sexuality , Paris - $the Hague - New York, Sheep, 1980.
the Inn of the musicians. Memories , Paris, Mazarine, 1981; rééd. increased, Paris, Grancher, 1999.
From Moscow to Beirut. Test on the misinformation , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1983.
diabolic Causality, T. 2: Mongolian yoke with the victory of Lénine 1250-120, Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1985; rééd. of the 2 volumes in 1 volume, 2006, with a foreword of Pierre-André Taguieff.

with Jean-Pierre Capstan, Totalitarianisms of the XXe century. An exceeded historical phenomenon? , Paris, Beech, 1987.

Moscow, third Rome. Intermittencies of the historical memory , Paris, Hatchet, “Literature”, 1989.

the back of the Destiny. Discussions with Georges-Elia Sarfati , Paris, Editions of Fallois, 1989.

the Samaritans , Paris, Threshold, 1991.

with Florence Engraved, the Epopee of the Old Believers. A history of Russia authenticates , Paris, Perrin, 1991.

(to dir.), Histoire of the anti-semitism (1945-1993) , Paris, Éditions of the Threshold, 1994.

the Impossible choice. History of the crises of Jewish identity , Southern Paris, Editions, 1995.

On the traces of the crime , foreword of Christian Delacampagne, introduction of Paul Zawadzki, Paris, International Berg, 2003. Collection of articles (posthumous).

Reference

Annette Wieviorka, “Leon Poliakov”, in Encyclopedia Universalis in line Site of subscribers
Pierre-André Taguieff, “Foreword” with diabolic Causality

External bonds

Testimony of Leon Poliakov (video) on April 28th, 1997 by Survivors off the Shoah Visual History Foundation
'' Mémorial of Shoah '' of the Information center Jewish Contemporary

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