10 December 2013
The 2013 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research, in memory of Abraham Meir Schwarzbaum, Holocaust survivor, and his family members murdered in the Holocaust, has been awarded to Dr. Avihu Ronen for his book, Condemned to Life: The Diaries and Life of Chajka Klinger (University of Haifa and Yedioth Books, 2011) and to Prof. Bernard Wasserstein for his book, On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War (London: Profile Books, 2012).
The award ceremony will take place at Yad Vashem on Thursday, December 12, 2013 at 13:30 at the International Institute for Holocaust Research Lecture Hall (room 223), Yad Vashem. Each of the prize recipients will present a lecture on his book at the event.
From the Judges Remarks:
Of all the books that were presented to the Book Prize Committee this year, two books were especially notable. Condemned to Life by Dr. Avihu Ronen weaves together meticulous research regarding different chapters of the Holocaust, with a thorough and sensitive account of the way in which the Holocaust was viewed during Israel's first few decades. Through a critical examination of both of these two central aspects, the author, a respected historian and son of Chajka Klinger, an activist and leader of the underground in Bedzin, Poland, seamlessly combines them together without compromising either. The book offers a rare blend of logic and emotion, humanity and power - a combination that sweeps the reader with it from the very first page and makes the book suitable for both researchers and the general public alike.
On the Eve provides a fitting response to the need, felt both in the research world and in higher education, for a broad, comprehensive analytical overview of European Jewry in its entirety and its situation and internal dynamics before the disaster. This lacuna has now been filled by Prof. Bernard Wasserstein’s study which is an excellent work of historical synthesis by a leading scholar that deals with the condition of European Jewry in the 1930's. The author deals with economics, politics, language, culture and intellectual life, institutions, beliefs, internal divisions and more. Elegantly written and organized in a generally thematic manner, the book provides a truly comprehensive, continent-wide step-by-step overview of the situation of European Jewry between the two World Wars which the author describes as "close to terminal collapse. Wasserstein has an unerring feel for telling an anecdote, poignant poem, folk song, or literary selection, all of which appear in abundance throughout his gripping narrative. On the Eve is a thought-provoking and rare academic introduction to European Jewish history during a crucial era, which provides an evaluative framework that allows for a deeper understanding of the Shoah and in many ways is a tour de force.
The finalists this year were Alon Confino, Foundational Pasts: The Holocaust as Historical Understanding, Laura Jokusch, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe and Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Okrzyki pogromowe. Szkice z antropologii historycznej Polski lat 1939-1946.
The members of the Yad Vashem Book Prize Committee for the year 2013 were: Committee Chairman Prof. Dan Michman, Yad Vashem and Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Prof. Sam Kassow, Trinity College, USA; Dr. Iael Nidam-Orvieto, Yad Vashem, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; Prof. Dina Porat, Yad Vashem and Tel Aviv University, Israel; Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Israel; Dr. David Silberklang, Yad Vashem, University of Haifa and Hebrew University of Jerusalem Israel; Prof. Dr. Sybille Steinbacher, University of Vienna, Austria.
