Livia Rothkirchen

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Livia Rothkirchen
Born1922
Veľká Sevljuš, Carpathian Ruthenia
DiedMarch 2013 (aged 90)
Israel
NationalityCzechoslovak, Israeli
OccupationHistorian
Notable workThe Destruction of Slovak Jewry (1961)

Livia Rothkirchen (1922 – March 2013)

Holocaust, including The Destruction of Slovak Jewry (1961), the first authoritative description of the deportation and murder of the Jews of Slovakia.[2]

Early life and education

See also:
German occupation of Czechoslovakia

Rothkirchen was born to a Jewish family in

Slovak state, which collaborated with the Nazis.[3] In all three areas, harsh regulations were imposed on Jewish citizens, most of whom were ultimately deported and killed.[2] Rothkirchen and her family were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in May 1944 by the Hungarian authorities; her parents did not survive.[2]

After the war, Rothkirchen and her three sisters moved to Prague, where she studied Russian and English language and literature at Charles University, obtaining her PhD in 1949 for a thesis on the English playwright and novelist J. B. Priestley, Modern England in the Light of J. B. Priestley's Plays.[2]

Research

After moving to Israel in 1956, Rothkirchen joined the staff of Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to victims of the Holocaust.[2] She made a distinct contribution to documenting the Holocaust, specifically issues flowing from Germany's take-over of the democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia. Rothkirchen studied the impact of decisions of Europe's political leaders on general society, on Jewish communal leaders attempting to save their communities, and on Jews attempting to save themselves and their families from annihilation.

In or around 1968 Rothkirchen became the editor of Yad Vashem Studies (then known as Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance), a position she held for 15 years, during which she edited volumes 7–15. She also authored and co-authored numerous articles for the journal, and wrote or edited several books. Gila Fatran wrote of Rothkirchen's first book, The Destruction of Slovak Jewry (1961), that "the trailblazing and dedicated work invested in it was reflected in its quality and exactitude".[2] That work and her final book, The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: Facing the Holocaust (2005), together "provide an overarching history of the Holocaust in the former Czechoslovakia", according to historian Michael L. Miller.[4] The latter book received praise for being one of the only works on its subject available in English, but also some criticism for overemphasizing the idea of Czech tolerance and presenting a one-sided view of Czech-Jewish relations.[5][6][7]

Rothkirchen was awarded the Max Nordau Prize for History in 1973.[8] An issue of Yad Vashem Studies was dedicated to her memory after her death in Jerusalem in 2013.[2]

Selected works

References

  1. ISSN 1476-7937
    .
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Fatran, Gila (2013). "Livia Rothkirchen — In Memoriam". Yad Vashem Studies. 41 (1).
  3. ^ Bauer, Yehuda (1982). A History of the Holocaust. Franklin Watts Publishers.
  4. ^ Miller, Michael L. (2007). "Czech Holocaust or Holocaust in the Czech Lands?" Yad Vashem Studies, 35(1): 206, cited in Fatran (2013).
  5. S2CID 162830807
    .
  6. S2CID 145190886
    .
  7. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcm015
    .
  8. ^ Berenbaum, Michael; Peck, Abraham J., eds. (1998). "Contributors". The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined. Washington, Bloomington and Indianapolis: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Indiana University Press. p. 819.
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