Leading Holocaust Historian and Scholar to Speak at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s most important scholars of Holocaust studies, will give a lecture titled “Holocaust and the Jewish Resistance” on Wednesday, April 22 at 4 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture, sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and funded by the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding, is free and open to the public.

Bauer is professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has been a visiting professor at Brandeis University, Yale University, Richard Stockton College and Clark University. He was the founding editor of the Journal for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and served on the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, published by Yad Vashem, (the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem) in 1990. He has authored many books, including A History of the Holocaust (Franklin Watts, 1982), Rethinking the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2000), Jews for Sale?: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945 (Yale University Press, 1994), and They Chose Life: Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust (The American Jewish Committee, 1973).

Bauer has argued for a wider definition of resistance during the Holocaust to encompass any activity that gave the Jewish people dignity and humanity in the most humiliating and inhumane conditions. He maintains that, contrary to common misperception, Jews did not go passively to their deaths during the Holocaust.

In recent years, Bauer has received recognition for his work in the field of Holocaust studies and the prevention of genocide. In 1998, he was the recipient of the Israel Prize, the highest civilian award in Israel. In 2001, he was elected a Member of the Israeli Academy of Science. Currently, he serves as academic adviser to Yad Vashem; honorary chairman of the International Task Force for Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research; and senior adviser to the Swedish Government on the International Forum on Genocide Prevention.

The Kraft-Hiatt Fund, administered through the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, supports campus and community-wide educational initiatives that foster understanding of Judaism and Jewish culture, and dialogue between Jews and Christians. For more information, please visit www.holycross.edu/crec.