03 December 2002
Yad Vashem’s annual Buchman Memorial Prize was awarded to Arieh Kochavi for his book Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, The United States, and Jewish Refugees, 1945-1948 (English) and to Hanna Yablonka for The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann (Hebrew).
Post-Holocaust Politics tells the story of the displaced persons, the international superpowers’ postwar diplomacy, and the creation of the State of Israel. Kochavi examines how postwar British foreign policy was designed and implemented to prevent Jewish Holocaust survivors from emigrating from Europe to Palestine.
In The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann, Yablonka examines how the Eichmann trial (1961) acted as a catalyst for Israeli society’s confrontation with the Holocaust and the half a million survivors living in its midst. Through an analysis of archival materials discovered since the trial, the book recounts the preparations for the trial; selection of the “participants;” exposure of the Holocaust story during the trial; and the public debate invoked by Eichmann’s death penalty sentence.
The Jacob Buchman Foundation was established in Paris in 1988 in the framework of the Jewish France Foundation. It was created in memory of Buchman’s wife, Esther, and his daughter, Hanaleh who perished in the Holocaust. The prize - presented by Yad Vashem in Israel as the Buchman Memorial Prize”- is given to authors, artists, and researchers for exemplary work in the field of the Holocaust.
Presentation of the prize took place at Yad Vashem on December 5, 2002 at 16:00 in the lecture hall of the International School for Holocaust Studies.
