Yehuda Bauer, one of Israel’s foremost Holocaust scholars who shaped the way people around the world study and learn about the Holocaust, died in Jerusalem on Friday. He was 98.
Bauer published dozens of books and founded numerous international Holocaust education initiatives over a career that spanned more than six decades. He spoke Czech, Slovak, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, English, French and Polish, and learned Welsh while studying at Cardiff University in Wales. His mastery of languages allowed him to study source material in its original form and connect directly with audiences across the world.
“One of his important points was that the Holocaust is not only a particular event that affected particular people, but that the Holocaust was also universal,” said Dr. David Silberklang, a senior historian at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem who worked closely with Bauer for years.“ Once it happened, and human beings did what they did, it has entered the playbook, the potential of what human beings could do and therefore could be done again,” he said.
Antisemitism is a danger to all humanity
In an article published in 2022, Bauer wrote that the dangers of antisemitism is a danger to all humanity. "The Holocaust was specific, it targeted Jews and was universal because the Jews are part of the human world. The Nazi ideology tried to cut this connection and the Holocaust was the result."
In another article, Bauer wrote that the Holocaust, unlike other genocides, was not a result of pragmatism - economics, political or military. "The Holocaust had no economic background because the Germans could and did take Jewish property and could use Jews as slaves, which they sometimes did," he wrote.
"But their main motivation was ideological and when that contradicted economic interests, ideology always won. That was unprecedented but could be repeated by a regime against any human group. Jews had no state or military and no real political influence so the motive was ideological and anti-pragmatic.
He said the Holocaust was planned not only for Europe but for the rest of the world, lending it for the first time in history, a universal facet.
Bauer was born in Prague in 1926. As a teenager, his family was able to flee Europe in 1939 and came to British Mandate Palestine via Romania. After returning from university in Wales, he joined Kibbutz Shoval in southern Israel and studied at the Hebrew University. He lived in Jerusalem for the last decades of his life.
Bauer launched his academic career in the 1960s, during a time when people in Israel were just starting to talk more openly about the Holocaust. In the immediate years after the Holocaust, as many survivors were shattered and trying to build their lives, very few people spoke openly about what had happened.
Silberklang said that the country needed time and perspective before it could start examining the Holocaust under an academic lens, and that Bauer was one of the first wave of scholars to begin rigorous research on a topic that had previously been too painful to discuss.
In Israel, shame and guilt swirled around the perception that European Jews had gone “like sheep to the slaughter.”
Bauer was known for directly engaging with non-academic audiences and spoke widely around the world
Bauer’s research delved into different aspects of Jewish resistance and began to change the narrative of how victims of the Holocaust had found ways to resist the Nazis beyond just armed struggle, such as smuggling or continuing to observe religious or cultural traditions.
Some of his most well-known publications include “American Jewry and the Holocaust,” probing the American response to WWII; “Jews for Sale?” about negotiations to rescue Jews during the Holocaust; “Death of the Shtetl” about the decimation of the small Jewish communities in Europe; and “Rethinking the Holocaust,” examining fundamental questions about how to define and explain the Holocaust and how or whether the Holocaust can be compared to other genocides. Bauer was known for directly engaging with non-academic audiences and spoke widely around the world.
With European heads of state, Bauer helped create the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 1998, a coalition of more than 35 countries that requires its members to devote government funding to Holocaust education and commemoration. With IHRA, Bauer also helped author the Working Definition of Antisemitism, which is used by many governments and organizations to help define hate crimes and discrimination against Jews.
Bauer was awarded the Israel Prize, one of the country’s highest honors, in 1998. Silberklang said Bauer remained engaged and active until the end of his life, including writing Op-Eds and contributing to academic discussions.
Silberklang said Bauer disagreed with the comparison of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel to the Holocaust, noting that the Palestinian militant group is not as strong or organized as the Nazis and the state of Israel exists to provide a military response.
A lover of music, Bauer had a deep baritone and was known to sing duets with some of his academic partners or break out into traditional Welsh folk songs he learned as a university student, Silberklang said.
He is survived by two daughters, three step-children, and numerous grandchildren.
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