Thus spake Yehuda Bauer, pioneering Holocaust scholar, true humanist

The celebrated German-born American diplomatic historian Hajo Holborn once wrote “History gives answers only to those who know how to ask questions.” Yehuda Bauer, who died on Friday at the age of 98, knew how to ask questions, and over the course of a career spanning seven decades was relentless in his search for answers – especially, but not only, about the most excruciating chapter in Jewish history.

The pioneering doyen of Holocaust scholarship, it is through Yehuda’s voluminous and meticulously researched writings that generations of scholars and students came to understand (at least to the extent that this word can be appropriately applied to) the destruction of European Jewry.

Born in Prague in 1926, Yehuda, like many Jews in the capital of newborn Czechoslovakia, grew up speaking both German and Czech, which served him in good stead. He eventually became fluent in Hebrew, English, Yiddish and French and could comfortably read Polish and a number of other languages.

The liberal democratic spirit of interwar Czechoslovakia left an indelible mark on him, as did its collapse shortly after it was compelled to surrender the Sudetenland. Fortunately, Yehuda and his parents managed to leave Europe in 1939, and it was at the influence of a high school history teacher in Haifa that he decided to devote his life to the study of the past, to become a practitioner of “the historian’s craft,” as Marc Bloch famously called it. The recipient of a scholarship from the British government in the last years of the Mandate, Yehuda studied history at the University of Cardiff and went on to earn his PhD at the Hebrew University.

It was only in the early 1960s, at the urging of the legendary Vilna ghetto partisan and poet Abba Kovner, that Yehuda turned his attention to what made him famous – the study of the Holocaust. This was at a time when only a handful of scholars were dealing with this topic, which was still an open, festering wound.

In between, Yehuda had fought for Israel’s independence in the Palmach – the striking force of the Haganah – and was one of the founding members of Kibbutz Shoval in the Negev desert. The hardscrabble communal settlement became his spiritual home and it was there that he was laid to rest on Sunday, alongside his wife Ilana.

Kovner could not have chosen a more able and thoughtful chronicler. For Yehuda, the most exhilarating aspects of the study of history were the new discoveries and interpretations that led to the deconstruction of the existing canon and a new understanding of past events.

A towering scholar with a minuscule ego, Yehuda was always excited to read revelatory research and never hesitated to announce, upon the discovery of new information, that his own views had changed. Significantly, he saw himself first and foremost as an educator and his dedication to his students at Hebrew University and elsewhere was legendary. Director Dani Dyan said of Yehuda’s longtime affiliation with Yad Vashem that it would be impossible to imagine that institution as the hub of Holocaust research and education that it is today without his inestimable contributions.

Rather than “encyclopedic,” which would imply a degree of superficiality, the scope and depth of Yehuda’s knowledge and curiosity regarding events past and present was truly breathtaking. He was able to marshal an array of ideas and facts spanning different continents and periods to advance his ideas and to transform them into powerful, thought-provoking and perfectly arranged prose, whether written or spoken.

Mesmerizing

Yehuda was a mesmerizing lecturer and once he would begin his oratory (almost never speaking from a prepared text or even note cards), you could hear a pin drop. Within seconds, the audience was riveted. He gave an unforgettable address at a 2015 event on the Allied Response to the Holocaust, organized by Professors Alexander J. Groth (with whom he sparred on several occasions) and Tony Tanke and co-sponsored by the Israel Council on Foreign Relations (ICFR) and the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.

When introduced, Yehuda explained that having heard the previous presentations, he would “talk freely” as he had “more or less jettisoned” the paper that he had prepared “because much of what I wanted to say has been said here.”

Without delay, he delivered a captivating and iconoclastic speech on how to understand the Western Allies’ actions of omission and commission and whether the Americans and the British could have rescued millions of Jews trapped in Nazi-dominated Europe.

An hour later, when he was finished, the applause was thunderous. A student in the audience who was working as an intern at a Jerusalem think tank ran up to me and gushingly said, “My God! That was the greatest lecture I have ever heard in my life. I hope that I’ll be like that when I’m in my eighties.”

“Young man,” I replied, “I’m ‘only’ 52, but I’m not and never will be capable of giving a presentation even remotely comparable. That was the voice of one of the greatest minds of our era, but sadly, that ‘model’ was discontinued long ago.”

But it wasn’t only his brilliance that distinguished Bauer from other renowned scholars, it was also humility and self-effacing humor. We co-wrote a few newspaper op-eds and when it came time to sign the first one before submitting it for publication, he said, “Just write ‘The authors are historians.’ No need to add anything more.” In the last ten years, The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, which I founded and edit, became one of his favorite platforms, something that will always be a source of immense pride to my colleagues and me. Over the years we published close to 15 texts by Yehuda, dealing with antisemitism, democracy, Holocaust memory and amnesia, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hamas, migration challenges, and other topics.

Once, when editing a piece he had written on illiberalism that lambasted the Israeli government, I laughingly told him, “I don’t think Mrs. Netanyahu will be inviting you to her Shabbat table.”

“That,” he reminded me, “is one of the great things about reaching such a venerable age … you can write whatever you want, and don’t have to worry about any consequences.”

In 2018, Yehuda was invited to speak at an ICFR / World Jewish Congress program in Tel Aviv, cosponsored by Bulgarian ambassador to Israel Dimitar Mihaylov, entitled “Whither Europe: Has the death knell on liberalism and tolerance been sounded?” We decided to use that occasion to surprise Yehuda with the WJC’s Nahum Goldmann Medal, awarded to luminaries who have made signal contributions to world Jewry. After the panel discussion had ended, and with the packed hall still electrified by Yehuda’s remarks, we sprung the medal on him. Visibly touched, Yehuda took the microphone and acknowledged that the award was unexpected – and that he had known Goldmann, the cosmopolitan Jewish leader, personally: “He really didn’t like me,” he added, “and I think he’s turning in his grave.”

‘Also sprach Zarabauer’

His remarkable mental prowess virtually unaffected by his worsening physical infirmities, Yehuda used an array of signatures on letters to make light of the toll of old age: “Bauerus Tyrannus Nebbichus Rex” or (at other times as “Iscariot,” (which I abbreviated to “Isc”).

On finishing the explanation of something in an email, and alluding to the work of Nietzsche, he would write “Also sprach Zarabauer” (a play on Thus Spake Zarathustra). We came to call his apartment at an assisted living facility in Jerusalem’s Beit HaKerem “Festung Hohebauerburg” (the Upper Bauer-burg Fortress).

In our correspondence, I was “Lorenzo,” the “Wojewoda”(Polish for governor), or any of half a dozen other endearing names he would call me. Thinking about them now brings tears to my eyes, but deep appreciation for having been close to such a man.

A true humanist, Yehuda was an unabashed though not uncritical Zionist. He couldn’t stand any kind of nationalist bravado, especially when connected to the memory of the Shoah – and didn’t hesitate to ruffle feathers when he publicly said as much. Yehuda forcefully rejected the politicization of the past or its instrumental use whether in Israel, post-Communist Europe, or anywhere else in the world and constantly called out those who engage in such practices.

“In order to fortify national consciousness, and therefore the nationalist political leadership, a past has to be found that can be used to educate – more precisely, to indoctrinate – the nation, young and old. When such an uplifting past is unavailable, it has to be invented,” he wrote. He cautioned against the tendency to create an “overdrawn” or glorified picture of events.

Yehuda deeply believed in the idea of “Tikkun Olam” – a phrase that nowadays has been cheapened and distorted beyond recognition. He was especially interested in the phenomenon of genocide and genocide prevention, and the question of whether the Holocaust should be seen as a “unique” event in history. While recognizing the distinct features of that catastrophe, he insisted that there were certainly other instances of genocide. However, he was especially cautious in the use of the G-word when recklessly (or deliberately) applied to other cases of mass murder, which were of a different order.

Yehuda was founder of the “Genocide Prevention Advisory Network” and often lamented the fact that this issue did not find the resonance that he had hoped. More successful was the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) , the coalition of countries he helped found and which he chaired for many years.

Not long before his death, Yehuda was interviewed on the radio and asked about what he was planning for the future. “To die,” he said, without missing a beat.

In 2021, Yehuda penned his own eulogy which one of his daughters read aloud at his funeral. He described his life with his characteristic good humor causing many of those gathered at the gravesite to smile and even laugh. In his parting message, he stressed his love for Israel and the Jewish people emphasizing that “ain li eretz acheret” (I have no other country). Toward the end, he apologized that the speech was so long but promised that it wouldn’t happen again.

Despite his enormous achievements, for which he had received the coveted Israel Prize and recognition by many foreign governments, Israeli officialdom went unrepresented at the ceremony, which would have neither surprised nor disappointed him, but is a telling sign of the times in which we live.

Sadly, the voice of that noble man has been stilled, but the vast scholarship he left behind will last far longer than even the sturdiest and most imposing marble monument. His memory will surely be both a blessing and an unremitting source of inspiration for years to come.