Holocaust educational organisations across the world have been paying tribute to one of the greatest scholars in the field, Professor Yehuda Bauer, who died in Israel on Friday at the age of 98.
The honorary chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and veteran kibbutznik, who was Czech-born, emigrated to Palestine with his family on the eve of World War Two.
A professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he wrote numerous books on many topics that included Jewish resistance during the Shoah, reaction to the catastrophe and antisemitism, and was the founding editor of the journal of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Mourning a “giant”, University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education said he was “one of the greatest Holocaust historians of our time, and the most compelling orator and teacher”.
Robert J Williams, chief executive of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation said “he was, in many ways, the force that led to the creation of what is now known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance…
"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.”
Bauer, he added, “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.”
He had also been one of “only a few voices in the wilderness” in warning in the early 1980s of the possibility of the revival of antisemitism, Williams said.
Israel’s national Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, said he was “a global authority” on Holocaust history, whose “wisdom and dedication enriched our understanding of this dark chapter”.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, called Bauer “a guiding light, grounding us in the complexities of the history of the Holocaust and its relevance today”.
He “articulated everything in a a thought-provoking and articulate way, making the most difficult subject and discussion interesting and accessible”.
He studied at Cardiff University, interrupted by a return to Israel to fight in its War of Independence. As well as the eight languages he spoke, he could sing Welsh folk songs, playing on the guitar.
Jewish Chronicle editor-at-large Stephen Pollard said, “It was one of the great privileges of my time as JC editor befriending Yehuda and then persuading him to write regularly for the JC.
“His columns were based not just on his peerless learning but also on the depth of his humanity, which shone through everything he wrote.”
In an article in the JC in 2017, warning of the move away from liberalism across the world, Bauer wrote: “Jews can live peacefully only in relatively liberal societies.”
Last year, in another article, he criticised “the growing tendency of academics to politicise the Holocaust and use that tragedy as a weapon with which to attack Israel”.
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