Léon Poliakov (; 25 November 1910 – 8 December 1997) was a French historian who wrote extensively on

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

and

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

. He is the author of ''The Aryan Myth''.

Biography

Born into a

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest po ...

family, Poliakov lived in Italy and Germany until he settled in France. He cofounded the

Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation The Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation was an independent French organization founded by Isaac Schneersohn in 1943 in the town of Grenoble, France during the Second World War to preserve the evidence of Nazi war crimes for future gener ...

, established to collate documentation on the persecution of Jews during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He also assisted Edgar Faure at the Nuremberg Trial. Poliakov was director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research (

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

) from 1954 to 1971. According to historian Jos Sanchez, Poliakov was the first scholar to assess the disposition of

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...

critically on various issues connected to the Holocaust. In November 1950, Poliakov wrote "The Vatican and the 'Jewish Question' - The Record of the Hitler Period—And After" in the influential Jewish journal '' Commentary''. The article was the first to consider the attitude of the papacy during

and the Holocaust, but it was not until 1963, when German playwright Rolf Hochhuth published his play '' Der Stellvertreter'', that discussion of Poliakov's initial investigations in this area took on worldwide significance. Although little noted at the time, Poliakov's 1951 ''Bréviaire de la haine'' ("Harvest of Hate") was the first major work on the

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

, predating

Raul Hilberg Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was a Jewish Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust. Christopher R. Browning has called him the founding f ...

's '' Destruction of the European Jews'' by a decade. It received some good reviews. Poliakov said in his memoirs that he refrained from even using the word "genocide", which was considered unfit for publication in 1951 when his groundbreaking work was first published. as cited in p247 of

Publications

* ''L'étoile jaune - La situation des Juifs en France sous l'Occupation - Les législations nazie et vichyssoise'' (Editions Grancher, October 1999 - three texts: a book of 1949, an article in ''Historia'' magazine in 1968 and a text of 1980) * , translated 1956 as ''Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of Jews in Europe'' * ''The History of Anti-Semitism: From the Time of Christ to the Court Jews'' (orig. 1955; this tr. 1966; repr. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) * ''The History of Anti-Semitism: From Mohammed to the Marranos'' (orig. 1961; tr. 1973; repr. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) , * ''The History of Anti-Semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner'' (orig. 1968; tr. 1975; repr. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) [preview a
Google Books
* ''The History of Anti-Semitism: Suicidal Europe. 1870–1933'' (orig. 1977; tr. 1984; repr. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) [preview a
Google Books
* ''The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalistic Ideas In Europe'' (Barnes & Noble Books (1996)) * ''Jews Under the Italian Occupation'' (coauthored with Jacques Sabille) (Howard Fertig; 1st American ed edition (December, 1983)) * «Moscou, troisième Rome» ''Moscow, The third Rome'' * «L`Auberge des musiciens» (memoir) * «L`envers du Destin» (autobiography) * "De l'antisionisme à l'antisémitisme" (1969) *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Poliakov, Leon 1910 births 1997 deaths Jewish historians 20th-century Russian Jews French people of Russian-Jewish descent, french people of Russian-Jewish descent Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France Scholars of antisemitism Historians of the Holocaust 20th-century French historians 20th-century French Jews Jewish French writers