Raul Hilberg

Raul Hilberg (June 6th, 1926 - August 4th, 2007) is a historian and American Jewish political economist of Austrian origin. Specialist in the Shoah of world reputation, Raul Hilberg was the first to thoroughly dismount the mechanisms of the genocide of the Jews.

Biography

Born with Vienna, Raul Hilberg flees the Austria and persecutions Nazis. After a stay with Cuba with its family, it unloads with the the United States, only, in 1939. In 1944, it is of return in Europe under the uniform of the American Armée.

Raul Hilberg makes studies of Political science to the Université of Brooklyn and Droit to Columbia. In 1956, he becomes professor of International relations with the Université of Vermont, with Burlington, a university of modest reputation where he will make all his career, by multiplying the sabbatical vacation to conclude its research.

As of 1948, Raul Hilberg continues research relating to the Génocide of the Juif S of Europe. In 1952, he becomes member of the War Documentation Project and the Musée of the Memorial of the Holocaust of the United States, witness of the department of Justice in the lawsuits against the agents of the crime.

This station gives him access to the files of the Third Reich seized by the American army. In 1955, it supports its thesis the bureaucracy under the Nazi Germany under the direction of Franz Leopold Neumann. It tests great difficulties of making it publish. At the end of the years 1950, the extermination of the Jews then causes relatively little interest. The arrest of Adolf Eichmann, in 1960, and the opening of its lawsuit cause an renewed interest which allows the publication of the work. But the Destruction of the Jews of Europe appears in 1961 in the general indifference.

This work which it will not cease supplementing until the years 2000 became a world reference on the Shoah, in particular after the publication of the 2nd edition, in 1985 (in 1988 in its French version). In particular, Raul Hilberg added a final chapter on Rwanda after the Génocide to Rwanda of 1994, not being able to remain in her academic ivory tower with what occurred in the contemporary world.

Raul Hilberg, extract of an article of Marc Blachère

“Raul Hilberg says today still to be able to answer the " pourquoi" of " the solution finale". It does not dissect of them less with one extreme precision a process which implied all the wheels of State Nazi, of the S to the railroads, as well as whole pieces of the " company civile" allemande: industries, laboratories, trade. Industrial rationality relentless of a process deprived of any particular significance, if not that to achieve the entrusted task as well as possible, for the greatest number of its actors, German or collaborators, is not least questions which spouts out searchs for Raul Hilberg. ”

Raul Hilberg died on August 4th, 2007 in her residence in the State of Vermont. It was 81 years old.

Publications

Works

Destruction of the Jews of Europe , ED. Beech, 1988, and Gallimard, “Folio” - history, two vol., 1991; third edition, three volumes, Gallimard, “Folio” - history, 2006
Executors, victims, pilot , ED. Gallimard, coll “NRF” - tests, 1994 and “Folio” - history, 2004
the Policy of the memory , Gallimard, collection “arcades” 1996
Holocaust: sources of the history , ED. Gallimard, coll “NRF” - tests, 2001

Direction of collective works

Insurrection of the ghetto of Warsaw , ED. Complex, 1994

Contribution to collective works

Auf den Trümmern der Geschichte. Gespräche put Raul Hilberg, Hans Mommsen und Zygmunt Bauman , übingen, ED. Diskord, coll “Studien zum Nationalsozialismus”, 1999

Text-editing

Foreword and edition of Adam Czerniaków, Notebooks of the ghetto of Warsaw. September 6th, 1939 - July 23rd, 1942 , ED. The Discovery, 2003 original: '' The Warsaw Diary off Adam Czerniakow: Be a prelude to Doom '', Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1998

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