Prof. Yehuda Bauer
19 October 2024
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center mourns the passing of esteemed international Holocaust researcher and its Academic Advisor Professor Yehuda Bauer, Z"L, who passed away on Friday, 18 October 2024, in Jerusalem at the age of 98.
Born in Prague in 1926, Prof. Bauer's early life was marked by upheaval, as his family fled to Poland in 1939, eventually making their way to Eretz Israel (then Mandatory Palestine) via Romania. He completed his high school education in Haifa and later attended Cardiff University in Wales with the support of a British scholarship. Upon returning to Israel, he joined Kibbutz Shuvel and pursued a degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he earnedhis doctorate in 1960 with a thesis focused on Jewish settlement during British rule in the Land of Israel (British Mandate of Palestine).
Yehuda Bauer began his illustrious academic career at the Avraham Herman Institute of Contemporary Judaism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he served as Professor Emeritus of History and Holocaust studies for many years. Thanks to his exceptional linguistic abilities, being fluent in Czech, Slovak, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, English, French, and Polish, Bauer's groundbreaking research drew upon original source material in several languages.
A prolific scholar, he authored numerous seminal articles and books on the Holocaust and genocide, founded and edited the journal “Holocaust and Genocide Studies”, and was awarded the Israel Prize in 1998 for his significant contributions to Holocaust research. In 2001, he became a member of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and was awarded the Illis Quorum by the Swedish government in 2005. Bauer was also honored with the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award from the Jerusalem Municipality in 2008.
Throughout his career Bauer was a visiting professor at various universities and he was a pivotal influence in the creation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which he later served as an Honorary Chair in recent years. He also acted as an advisor to the Swedish government on the International Forum for Genocide Prevention.
At Yad Vashem, Bauer led the International Institute for the Study of the Holocaust from 1996 to 2000, and subsequently became an academic advisor. His long-standing contributions extended beyond research, Bauer was also a member of the Yad Vashem Council, the Scientific Committee, and the editorial board for the academic journal “Yad Vashem Studies”.
Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan said,
"Prof. Yehuda Bauer not only enriched our knowledge of the Holocaust, but also deepened our understanding of this unprecedented event in Jewish and human history. Bauer never confined himself to the ivory tower of academia; he was always an 'engaged intellectual.' He expressed his views decisively, yet always with respect for those who disagreed with him. For decades, and up until his final days, Yad Vashem and the entire world benefited from his knowledge, insights, and research through his roles at Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research and in various international organizations. With his passing, we have lost the foremost Holocaust scholar of our time."
Yad Vashem extends its deepest condolences to Professor Bauer’s children and grandchildren. May his memory be a blessing.
