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Braham's career was spent teaching comparative politics and Soviet studies at [[The City College of New York]], where he chaired the political science department. He was the author or editor of over 60 books, authored or co-authored chapters in 50 others, and published a large number of scholarly articles. The vast majority of his published work deals with the [[Holocaust in Hungary]]. He became best known for his two-volume work ''The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary'', first published in 1981.<ref name=Smith27Nov2018>{{cite news|last=Smith |first=Harrison |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/randolph-l-braham-leading-historian-of-the-holocaust-in-hungary-dies-at-95/2018/11/27/1695d9aa-f257-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html|title = Randolph L. Braham, Leading Historian of the Holocaust in Hungary, Dies at 95|date=27 November 2018|work = The Washington Post}}</ref>
Braham's career was spent teaching comparative politics and Soviet studies at [[The City College of New York]], where he chaired the political science department. He was the author or editor of over 60 books, authored or co-authored chapters in 50 others, and published a large number of scholarly articles. The vast majority of his published work deals with the [[Holocaust in Hungary]]. He became best known for his two-volume work ''The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary'', first published in 1981.<ref name=Smith27Nov2018>{{cite news|last=Smith |first=Harrison |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/randolph-l-braham-leading-historian-of-the-holocaust-in-hungary-dies-at-95/2018/11/27/1695d9aa-f257-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html|title = Randolph L. Braham, Leading Historian of the Holocaust in Hungary, Dies at 95|date=27 November 2018|work = The Washington Post}}</ref>


== Biography ==
== Early life ==
Born to a Jewish family in [[Bucharest]] (as Adolf Ábrahám, with the Hebrew name Avraham ben Itzhak ben Aryeh), the son of Lajos Ábrahám and Eszter Katz, Braham was raised in extreme poverty in [[Dej]], a historically Hungarian small town in [[Transylvania]].<ref name="Schveiger">{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_03422.html|title=Braham, Randolph Louis|last=Schveiger|first=Paul|year=2008|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library |accessdate=4 April 2012}}</ref> He spent 1943–1945 in the so-called [[Labor service (Hungary)|Labor service]] of the Hungarian army in the [[Reichskommissariat Ukraine|Ukraine]], slave-labor units of military-age Jews who ordinarily were murdered after major campaigns or before retreats. During the chaotic Hungarian collapse to the Soviets, Braham escaped and traveled homewards secretly through German-occupied Hungary.
Born to a Jewish family in [[Bucharest]] (as Adolf Ábrahám, with the Hebrew name Avraham ben Itzhak ben Aryeh), the son of Lajos Ábrahám and Eszter Katz, Braham was raised in extreme poverty in [[Dej]], a historically Hungarian small town in [[Transylvania]].<ref name="Schveiger">{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_03422.html|title=Braham, Randolph Louis|last=Schveiger|first=Paul|year=2008|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library |accessdate=4 April 2012}}</ref> He spent 1943–1945 in the so-called [[Labor service (Hungary)|Labor service]] of the Hungarian army in the [[Reichskommissariat Ukraine|Ukraine]], slave-labor units of military-age Jews who ordinarily were murdered after major campaigns or before retreats. During the chaotic Hungarian collapse to the Soviets, Braham escaped and traveled homewards secretly through German-occupied Hungary.


During his escape to the West, in the Hungarian village of [[Nyíri]], he and four others were rescued from the Hungarian [[gendarmerie]] (working as an arm of the [[SS]]) by the Christian farmer István Novák (d. 1983), who has since been honored by the State of Israel as a [[Righteous Among the Nations]]. Never once in any of his published writings, until his 2014 open letter to the Hungarian community rejecting his honors from the Hungarian government, did Braham relate that he himself was a survivor; however, in his magnum opus ''The Politics of Genocide,'' he did use as a photo illustration--perhaps the only one without a source reference--a photo of his own dog tag.
During his escape to the West, in the Hungarian village of [[Nyíri]], he and four others were rescued from the Hungarian [[gendarmerie]] (working as an arm of the [[SS]]) by a Christian farmer, István Novák (d. 1983), who in 1985 was honored by [[Yad Vashem]] in Israel as [[Righteous Among the Nations]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Righteous Among The Nations: Novák István (? – 1983) |url=http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4016634 |publisher=Yad Vashem |archiveurl=https://archive.is/sIXng |archivedate=25 March 2019|dead-url=no}}</ref> Never once in any of his published writings, until his 2014 open letter to the Hungarian community rejecting his honors from the Hungarian government, did Braham reveal that he himself was a survivor. In his magnum opus ''The Politics of Genocide,'' he did use as a photo illustration—perhaps the only one without a source reference—a photograph of his own dog tag.


Braham's memoirs, on deposit in his archives in the USHMM, are sealed until 2033, but in his detailed testimony (1997) to the [[USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education|USC Shoah Foundation]] project, he describes ''inter alia'' the ordeals of his unit during the final year and winter on the Russian front attached to the Hungarian Army. These include the frequent hangings and tortures and that some of the men during that winter were reduced to marching barefoot and naked covered by only a blanket, defecating while walking; anyone who stopped was shot.
Braham's memoirs, on deposit in his archives in the USHMM, are sealed until 2033, but in his detailed testimony (1997) to the [[USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education|USC Shoah Foundation]] project, he describes ''inter alia'' the ordeals of his unit during the final year and winter on the Russian front attached to the Hungarian Army. These include the frequent hangings and tortures and that some of the men during that winter were reduced to marching barefoot and naked covered by only a blanket, defecating while walking; anyone who stopped was shot. Braham related how, for the amusement of the Hungarian officers and troops, he and his unit were sometimes given their daily rations of soup (often just the cooking water in which the potatoes for the soldiers were boiled): they were lined up on an elevated 2x4 board and given forks, the bowls of soup on the floor. The men could eat only by performing a full squat between each forkful, and anyone who fell was beaten or killed. He also described how, during Army maneuvers, he and the other Jews were placed face down in rows in otherwise impassable swamps, for the troops and horse-drawn carriages and horse-drawn artillery to ride over.


After arriving in the American Zone in Berlin, Braham served as a translator for the U.S. Army. His extended family perished in [[Auschwitz]], with the exception of his older sister, who survived the [[extermination camp]].
Braham related how, for the amusement of the Hungarian officers and troops, he and his unit were sometimes given their daily rations of soup (often just the cooking water in which the potatoes for the soldiers were boiled): they were lined up on an elevated 2x4 board and given forks, the bowls of soup on the floor. The men could eat only by performing a full squat between each forkful, and anyone who fell was beaten or killed.


==Arrival in America, education==
He also described how, during Army maneuvers, he and the other Jews were placed face down in rows in otherwise impassable swamps, for the troops and horse-drawn carriages and horse-drawn artillery to ride over.
⚫
Braham came to America in early 1948. Although forbidden as a Jew by the pre-World War II Hungarian government to attend [[Gymnasium (school)|Gymnasium]] (high school), he received a B.Sci. in economics and government from [[The City College of New York]] later that year, a M.Sci. in education from City College (the education school has since moved) in 1949, and a Ph.D. in political science from [[The New School|The New School for Social Research]] in 1952. The next year he became an American citizen, changed his first and last names and adopted his father's name Lewis (occasionally cited incorrectly spelled "Louis").

⚫
After arriving in the American Zone in Berlin, Braham served as a translator for the U.S. Army. His extended family perished in [[Auschwitz]], with the exception of his older sister, who survived the [[extermination camp]]. Braham came to America in early 1948. Although forbidden as a Jew by the pre-World War II Hungarian government to attend [[Gymnasium (school)|Gymnasium]] (high school), he received a B.Sci. in economics and government from [[The City College of New York]] later that year, a M.Sci. in education from City College (the education school has since moved) in 1949, and a Ph.D. in political science from [[The New School|The New School for Social Research]] in 1952. The next year he became an American citizen, changed his first and last names and adopted his father's name Lewis (occasionally cited incorrectly spelled "Louis").


==Career and research==
===Positions held===
Braham began his teaching career at CUNY in 1962 at The City College of New York, chaired the political science department there, and became a distinguished professor (CUNY's highest rank) in April 1987. He retired from active teaching in September 1992.
Braham began his teaching career at CUNY in 1962 at The City College of New York, chaired the political science department there, and became a distinguished professor (CUNY's highest rank) in April 1987. He retired from active teaching in September 1992.


Braham was a member of the Academic Committee of the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]], Washington, D.C., from the Museum's earliest planning through May 2005 and participated in the Academic Committee's Fellowship Subcommittee from its inception in 1999; he also was a special advisor for the [[Museum of Jewish Heritage]], New York and for [[Yad Vashem]]. His works were used as major source books by courts of law in various countries, including Canada, Germany, Israel, and the United States in cases involving restitution and war crimes.
Braham was a member of the Academic Committee of the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]], Washington, D.C., from the Museum's earliest planning through May 2005 and participated in the Academic Committee's Fellowship Subcommittee from its inception in 1999; he also was a special advisor for the [[Museum of Jewish Heritage]], New York and for [[Yad Vashem]]. His works were used as major source books by courts of law in various countries, including Canada, Germany, Israel, and the United States in cases involving restitution and war crimes.


===Writing and lecturing===
⚫
His two-volume ''The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary''<ref>{{cite news|title=The Hungarian Episode (New York Times Review of ''The Politics of Genocide,'' 1st ed.)|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/04/books/the-hungarian-episode.html|accessdate=25 November 2018|newspaper=New York Times|date=4 October 1981}}</ref> won the 1981 Jewish National Book Award (USA) (its most recent expanded revision appeared in 2016), and it earned him citations in the [[New York State Assembly]] (1981) and the ''[[Congressional Record]]'' (1981, 1994, 2004). Again in 2014 he received the Jewish National Book Award for his three-volume ''The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary.''<ref>{{cite news|title=Review Article: The Saddest History Ever Written: On Randolph L. Braham’s ''The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary'' (2013)|url=https://ahea.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/ahea/article/viewFile/4/186|newspaper=''Hungarian Cultural Studies'' Vol. 7|date= 2014}}</ref>
⚫
In 1990, as reported in the Washington Post, when appearing before the jury in the war-crimes trial of [[Imre Finta]], a Hungarian gendarmerie commander, Braham testified, ''My function is to pursue the truth . . . I try to comprehend the incomprehensible.''


⚫
And in 2014, in his open letter when returning his Hungarian honors, Braham wrote ''. . . As a survivor whose parents and many family members were among the hundreds of thousands of murdered Jews, [I] cannot remain silent [. . . .] It was my destiny to work on the preservation of the historical record of the Holocaust.
⚫
Among his other honors are the [[Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary|Order of Merit Officer's Cross of the Hungarian Republic]] (1995) (the highest civilian award of Hungary), the ''Pro Cultura Hungarica'' award of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture (2002), the ''Science for Society'' award of the Hungarian Academy of Science (2004), the [[Order of the Star of Romania]], Commander Rank, of the Romanian Republic (2009), and the Medium Cross of the Republic of Hungary (2011).


In the 1998 [[Academy Award|Oscar]]-winning [[Academy Award for Documentary Feature]] film [[The Last Days]], Braham provided overviews of the Hungarian Holocaust. His life story is the subject of the documentary ''Rémálmok nyomában'' (produced by Duna-TV), which received the ''Camera Hungarica'' award in 2003. It is available in an English version titled ''Retracing a Nightmare''.
In the 1998 [[Academy Award|Oscar]]-winning [[Academy Award for Documentary Feature]] film [[The Last Days]], Braham provided overviews of the Hungarian Holocaust. His life story is the subject of the documentary ''Rémálmok nyomában'' (produced by Duna-TV), which received the ''Camera Hungarica'' award in 2003. It is available in an English version titled ''Retracing a Nightmare''.


In January 2014, in a widely published open letter on what he saw as increasing attempts by Hungary's rightist [[Viktor Orbán|Orbán]] government to falsify history and whitewash the [[Horthy]] era, Braham returned his medals and resigned from the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, and forbade using his name in connection with the [[Holocaust Memorial Center (Budapest)|Holocaust Memorial Center]] in Budapest after excessive government interference.<ref>{{cite news|title=Holocaust Scholar Returns Top Award to Hungary in Protest
In January 2014, in a widely published open letter on what he saw as increasing attempts by Hungary's rightist [[Viktor Orbán|Orbán]] government to falsify history and whitewash the [[Horthy]] era, Braham returned his medals and resigned from the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, and forbade using his name in connection with the [[Holocaust Memorial Center (Budapest)|Holocaust Memorial Center]] in Budapest after excessive government interference.<ref>{{cite news|title=Holocaust Scholar Returns Top Award to Hungary in Protest
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/world/europe/holocaust-scholar-returns-top-award-to-hungary-in-protest.html?from=world|accessdate=8 June 2018|newspaper=New York Times|date=27 January 2014}}</ref> Previously, in 2005, he resigned from the Order of the Star of Romania, after a noted rightist was honored with membership.
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/world/europe/holocaust-scholar-returns-top-award-to-hungary-in-protest.html|newspaper=New York Times|date=27 January 2014}}</ref> Previously, in 2005, he resigned from the Order of the Star of Romania, after a noted rightist was honored with membership.


In 2017 he gave his last lecture in Budapest, and two months before his death published an open letter on the recent Hungarian government decision to construct a "competing" Holocaust museum.
In 2017 he gave his last lecture in Budapest, and two months before his death published an open letter on the recent Hungarian government decision to construct a "competing" Holocaust museum.
Line 85: Line 87:
Nobelist [[Elie Wiesel]], also a survivor of the Hungarian holocaust and a long-time colleague of Braham, concluded his foreword to Braham's 2013 geographical encyclopedia stating, ''To recommend this work to teachers, their students, and researchers is more than an act of friendship. It is the duty of remembrance that belongs to the realm of the sacred.''
Nobelist [[Elie Wiesel]], also a survivor of the Hungarian holocaust and a long-time colleague of Braham, concluded his foreword to Braham's 2013 geographical encyclopedia stating, ''To recommend this work to teachers, their students, and researchers is more than an act of friendship. It is the duty of remembrance that belongs to the realm of the sacred.''


Two nights before his brief final hospitalization for heart failure, Braham was actively writing revisions to his recent work, yet reluctantly had to cancel his farewell address —''The Struggle between the History and Collective Memory of the Twentieth Century: The Holocaust vs. Communism'' — scheduled the next day at the Rosenthal Institute he founded 39 years previously.
Two nights before his brief final hospitalization in 2018 for heart failure, Braham was actively writing revisions to his recent work, yet reluctantly had to cancel his farewell address —''The Struggle between the History and Collective Memory of the Twentieth Century: The Holocaust vs. Communism'' — scheduled the next day at the Rosenthal Institute he founded 39 years previously.


==Awards==
⚫
In 1990, as reported in the Washington Post, when appearing before the jury in the war-crimes trial of [[Imre Finta]], a Hungarian gendarmerie commander, Braham testified, ''My function is to pursue the truth . . . I try to comprehend the incomprehensible.''
⚫
His two-volume ''The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary''<ref>{{cite news|title=The Hungarian Episode (New York Times Review of ''The Politics of Genocide,'' 1st ed.)|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/04/books/the-hungarian-episode.html|accessdate=25 November 2018|newspaper=New York Times|date=4 October 1981}}</ref> won the 1981 Jewish National Book Award (USA) (its most recent expanded revision appeared in 2016), and it earned him citations in the [[New York State Assembly]] (1981) and the ''[[Congressional Record]]'' (1981, 1994, 2004). Again in 2014 he received the Jewish National Book Award for his three-volume ''The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary.''<ref>{{cite news|title=Review Article: The Saddest History Ever Written: On Randolph L. Braham’s ''The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary'' (2013)|url=https://ahea.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/ahea/article/viewFile/4/186|newspaper=''Hungarian Cultural Studies'' Vol. 7|date= 2014}}</ref>


⚫
Among his other honors are the [[Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary|Order of Merit Officer's Cross of the Hungarian Republic]] (1995) (the highest civilian award of Hungary), the ''Pro Cultura Hungarica'' award of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture (2002), the ''Science for Society'' award of the Hungarian Academy of Science (2004), the [[Order of the Star of Romania]], Commander Rank, of the Romanian Republic (2009), and the Medium Cross of the Republic of Hungary (2011).
⚫
And in 2014, in his open letter when returning his Hungarian honors, Braham wrote ''. . . As a survivor whose parents and many family members were among the hundreds of thousands of murdered Jews, [I] cannot remain silent [. . . .] It was my destiny to work on the preservation of the historical record of the Holocaust.


== Selected works ==
== Selected works ==

Revision as of 22:19, 25 March 2019

Randolph L. Braham
Born
Adolf Ábrahám

(1922-12-20)December 20, 1922
Bucharest, Romania
DiedNovember 25, 2018(2018-11-25) (aged 95)
New York City, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
EducationThe City College of New York
Alma materThe New School for Social Research
Known forSpecialist in comparative politics and the Holocaust
AwardsJewish National Book Award (two times), Order of Merit Officer's Cross of the Hungarian Republic (returned), Medium Cross of the Hungarian Republic (returned), Order of the Star of Romania (returned), Pro Cultura Hungarica award
Scientific career
FieldsHistory and political science
InstitutionsCity College

Randolph Lewis Braham (December 20, 1922 – November 25, 2018) was an American historian and political scientist, born in Romania, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. A specialist in comparative politics and the Holocaust, he was a founding board member of the academic committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Washington, D.C., and founded The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies at the Graduate Center in 1979.[1][2]

Braham's career was spent teaching comparative politics and Soviet studies at The City College of New York, where he chaired the political science department. He was the author or editor of over 60 books, authored or co-authored chapters in 50 others, and published a large number of scholarly articles. The vast majority of his published work deals with the Holocaust in Hungary. He became best known for his two-volume work The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, first published in 1981.[1]

Early life

Born to a Jewish family in Bucharest (as Adolf Ábrahám, with the Hebrew name Avraham ben Itzhak ben Aryeh), the son of Lajos Ábrahám and Eszter Katz, Braham was raised in extreme poverty in Dej, a historically Hungarian small town in Transylvania.[3] He spent 1943–1945 in the so-called Labor service of the Hungarian army in the Ukraine, slave-labor units of military-age Jews who ordinarily were murdered after major campaigns or before retreats. During the chaotic Hungarian collapse to the Soviets, Braham escaped and traveled homewards secretly through German-occupied Hungary.

During his escape to the West, in the Hungarian village of Nyíri, he and four others were rescued from the Hungarian gendarmerie (working as an arm of the SS) by a Christian farmer, István Novák (d. 1983), who in 1985 was honored by Yad Vashem in Israel as Righteous Among the Nations.[4] Never once in any of his published writings, until his 2014 open letter to the Hungarian community rejecting his honors from the Hungarian government, did Braham reveal that he himself was a survivor. In his magnum opus The Politics of Genocide, he did use as a photo illustration—perhaps the only one without a source reference—a photograph of his own dog tag.

Braham's memoirs, on deposit in his archives in the USHMM, are sealed until 2033, but in his detailed testimony (1997) to the USC Shoah Foundation project, he describes inter alia the ordeals of his unit during the final year and winter on the Russian front attached to the Hungarian Army. These include the frequent hangings and tortures and that some of the men during that winter were reduced to marching barefoot and naked covered by only a blanket, defecating while walking; anyone who stopped was shot. Braham related how, for the amusement of the Hungarian officers and troops, he and his unit were sometimes given their daily rations of soup (often just the cooking water in which the potatoes for the soldiers were boiled): they were lined up on an elevated 2x4 board and given forks, the bowls of soup on the floor. The men could eat only by performing a full squat between each forkful, and anyone who fell was beaten or killed. He also described how, during Army maneuvers, he and the other Jews were placed face down in rows in otherwise impassable swamps, for the troops and horse-drawn carriages and horse-drawn artillery to ride over.

After arriving in the American Zone in Berlin, Braham served as a translator for the U.S. Army. His extended family perished in Auschwitz, with the exception of his older sister, who survived the extermination camp.

Arrival in America, education

Braham came to America in early 1948. Although forbidden as a Jew by the pre-World War II Hungarian government to attend Gymnasium (high school), he received a B.Sci. in economics and government from The City College of New York later that year, a M.Sci. in education from City College (the education school has since moved) in 1949, and a Ph.D. in political science from The New School for Social Research in 1952. The next year he became an American citizen, changed his first and last names and adopted his father's name Lewis (occasionally cited incorrectly spelled "Louis").

Career and research

Positions held

Braham began his teaching career at CUNY in 1962 at The City College of New York, chaired the political science department there, and became a distinguished professor (CUNY's highest rank) in April 1987. He retired from active teaching in September 1992.

Braham was a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., from the Museum's earliest planning through May 2005 and participated in the Academic Committee's Fellowship Subcommittee from its inception in 1999; he also was a special advisor for the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York and for Yad Vashem. His works were used as major source books by courts of law in various countries, including Canada, Germany, Israel, and the United States in cases involving restitution and war crimes.

Writing and lecturing

In 1990, as reported in the Washington Post, when appearing before the jury in the war-crimes trial of Imre Finta, a Hungarian gendarmerie commander, Braham testified, My function is to pursue the truth . . . I try to comprehend the incomprehensible.

And in 2014, in his open letter when returning his Hungarian honors, Braham wrote . . . As a survivor whose parents and many family members were among the hundreds of thousands of murdered Jews, [I] cannot remain silent [. . . .] It was my destiny to work on the preservation of the historical record of the Holocaust.

In the 1998 Oscar-winning Academy Award for Documentary Feature film The Last Days, Braham provided overviews of the Hungarian Holocaust. His life story is the subject of the documentary Rémálmok nyomában (produced by Duna-TV), which received the Camera Hungarica award in 2003. It is available in an English version titled Retracing a Nightmare.

In January 2014, in a widely published open letter on what he saw as increasing attempts by Hungary's rightist Orbán government to falsify history and whitewash the Horthy era, Braham returned his medals and resigned from the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, and forbade using his name in connection with the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest after excessive government interference.[5] Previously, in 2005, he resigned from the Order of the Star of Romania, after a noted rightist was honored with membership.

In 2017 he gave his last lecture in Budapest, and two months before his death published an open letter on the recent Hungarian government decision to construct a "competing" Holocaust museum.

Nobelist Elie Wiesel, also a survivor of the Hungarian holocaust and a long-time colleague of Braham, concluded his foreword to Braham's 2013 geographical encyclopedia stating, To recommend this work to teachers, their students, and researchers is more than an act of friendship. It is the duty of remembrance that belongs to the realm of the sacred.

Two nights before his brief final hospitalization in 2018 for heart failure, Braham was actively writing revisions to his recent work, yet reluctantly had to cancel his farewell address —The Struggle between the History and Collective Memory of the Twentieth Century: The Holocaust vs. Communism — scheduled the next day at the Rosenthal Institute he founded 39 years previously.

Awards

His two-volume The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary[6] won the 1981 Jewish National Book Award (USA) (its most recent expanded revision appeared in 2016), and it earned him citations in the New York State Assembly (1981) and the Congressional Record (1981, 1994, 2004). Again in 2014 he received the Jewish National Book Award for his three-volume The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary.[7]

Among his other honors are the Order of Merit Officer's Cross of the Hungarian Republic (1995) (the highest civilian award of Hungary), the Pro Cultura Hungarica award of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture (2002), the Science for Society award of the Hungarian Academy of Science (2004), the Order of the Star of Romania, Commander Rank, of the Romanian Republic (2009), and the Medium Cross of the Republic of Hungary (2011).

Selected works

  • 1963: The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry: A Documentary Account (New York: Pro Arte, 2 vol.).
  • 1977: The Hungarian Labor Service System, 1939-1945 (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
  • 1981 (2016): The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary (New York: Columbia University Press, 2 vol.; 2nd ed. 1994; Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs, 3rd ed. 2016).
  • 1997 (2015): A népirtás politikája: A holocaust magyarországon [The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary] (Budapest: Belvárosi Könyvkiadó, 2 vol.; 3rd ed. 2015).
  • 1997: (with Attila Pók) The Holocaust in Hungary: Fifty Years Later (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
  • 2001-2014: Tanulmányok a holokausztról, Vol. I-VII [Studies on the Holocaust, 7 vol] [Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006]; (Budapest: Múlt és Jövő, 2014).
  • 2006: (with Brewster S. Chamberlin) The Holocaust in Hungary: Sixty Years Later (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
  • 2007: (with Zoltán Tibori Szabó) A magyarországi holokauszt földrajzi enciklopédiája [The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary] (Budapest: Park Könyvkiadó, 3 vol.).
  • 2008: (with Zoltán Tibori Szabó) Az észak-erdélyi holokauszt földrajzi enciklopédiája [The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania] (Budapest: Park Könyvkiadó; Cluj-Napoca: Koinónia, 3 vol.).
  • 2011: (with William J. vanden Heuvel). The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
  • 2011: Bibliography of the Holocaust in Hungary (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
  • 2013: (with Zoltán Tibori Szabó) The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies), 3 vol.
  • 2015: "Magyarország: Hadjárat a holokauszt történelmi emlékezete ellen," A holokauszt Magyarországon: hetven év múltán Randolph L. Braham and András Kovács, eds. (Budapest: Múlt és Jövő), pp. 229–261 (In English: "Hungary: The Assault on the Historical Memory of the Holocaust," The Holocaust in Hungary: Seventy Years Later Randolph L. Braham and András Kovács, eds. (Budapest: Central European University, 2016).

References

  1. ^ a b Smith, Harrison (27 November 2018). "Randolph L. Braham, Leading Historian of the Holocaust in Hungary, Dies at 95". The Washington Post.
  2. ^ Roberts, Sam (November 28, 2018). "Randolph Braham, 95, Holocaust Scholar Who Saw a Whitewash, Dies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 6, 2019. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Schveiger, Paul (2008). "Braham, Randolph Louis". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 4 April 2012.
  4. ^ "The Righteous Among The Nations: Novák István (? – 1983)". Yad Vashem. Archived from the original on 25 March 2019. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ "Holocaust Scholar Returns Top Award to Hungary in Protest". New York Times. 27 January 2014.
  6. ^ "The Hungarian Episode (New York Times Review of The Politics of Genocide, 1st ed.)". New York Times. 4 October 1981. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  7. ^ "Review Article: The Saddest History Ever Written: On Randolph L. Braham's The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary (2013)". Hungarian Cultural Studies Vol. 7. 2014. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |newspaper= (help)

Personal Biographical Material

External Biography

Scholarship

Archives

  • Index to The Randolph Braham Collection at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Research material collected by Randolph L. Braham, includes materials relevant to the Holocaust and its aftermath in Eastern Europe in general, and in Hungary and Romania in particular, trials against suspected war criminals, the revival of extreme right ideologies, and biographical information pertaining to the donor. Includes audio and videorecordings of interviews Randolph Braham conducted between 1972 and 1996 with survivors of the Holocaust in Hungary. Organized into 17 series.


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