BOOKS & IDEAS - A history he knew he had to share
New York — THERE comes a moment in life when the weight of memory and emotion can lead to action. For Saul Friedlander, that moment arrived when he stumbled upon a misfiled Nazi document in Bonn, during research for a book on U.S.-German relations before World War II.
During 1941, as news of Hitler's atrocities began spreading, Pope Pius XII had warmly invited the Berlin Opera to perform selections from Wagner at the Vatican, according to a formerly secret telegram that Friedlander read. The faded cable would have riveted any historian probing papal attitudes toward the Nazis, but it struck a nerve in the young scholar: His parents died at Auschwitz, and he was raised by French Catholics as the conflict raged. Fiercely proud of his Jewish roots, his disbelief over Pius XII's friendly invitation was a transforming moment.
"It shocked me; I was astonished," said Friedlander, recalling his 1962 discovery. "And I decided then and there that, for me, the right path was to study the history of this event, the Holocaust, so no one would ever forget it. It became my personal fate."
Today, Friedlander is a preeminent Holocaust historian and UCLA professor who recently published the concluding volume in his sprawling chronicle of Hitler's final solution, "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945," (HarperCollins). Recently, he received news that has forced him to revisit many of the burning personal questions that have driven his career: Later this year he will receive the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Friedlander, 74 and soon to retire, views the German honor with a jumble of emotions. What would his parents have thought? He has spent much of his life documenting Nazi crimes, and his new book may be one of the last Holocaust accounts by a major historian who actually experienced these traumatic events. As a new generation of scholars emerges, Friedlander's crusade to keep history alive is not just a professional imperative. It's highly personal.
"For me, the biggest question has always been, how was all this possible?" he said by telephone. "How could such unbelievable atrocities take place in the very heart of Europe, in one of the world's most advanced countries?"
- Book group honors professor Jun 15, 2007
- His Life's Work Jun 23, 1999
- WWII Odyssey Leads to Chair in Holocaust Studies Jan 11, 1988
