Gideon Griffin

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Gideon Greif (2002)

Gideon Greif (* 1951 in Tel Aviv ) is an Israeli historian and specialist in Holocaust research and didactic communication of the Holocaust . In particular, Gideon Greif has specialized in researching the “Sonderkommando” of Auschwitz-Birkenau .

career path

education

Gideon Greif , who came from a Jewish-German family , attended the humanities Municipal High School in Tel Aviv between 1965 and 1969 . From 1974 to 1976 he graduated from Tel Aviv University with a bachelor's degree in Jewish history with a focus on the history of the country of Israel . Between 1976 and 1982 he completed his Masters in Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. From 1996 to 2001 he did his doctorate in modern history at the University of Vienna.

Creative time

Between 1976 and 1982 Gideon Greif was a lecturer in Jewish history at the Open University in Ramat Aviv with the following subjects: "The history of the Jewish people during the Mishna and Talmud period"; "The History of the Zionist Idea and Movement"; “The history of the Jewish people during the 1st and 2nd centuries. 2. Temple ”and“ The History of the Jewish People during the Shoah Era ”. He was also the educational director of the academic program for Jewish history.

From 1982 to 1983 he worked in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) in Jerusalem as publications manager and editor for publications of the Israeli parliament.

Between 1983 and 2009 Gideon Greif worked at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and Giw'atajim as an editor, research director, educator and lecturer at the International School for Holocaust Studies. In addition, Gideon Greif was chairman of the German-speaking desk of the International School for Holocaust Studies between 1996 and 2005. Between 2005 and 2006 he was also the chairman of the Polish department. In 2002 and 2003 he worked as a lecturer in Jewish history at the Faculty of Jewish History at Haifa University. Between August and December 2001, he was also visiting professor of Holocaust studies at the Center for Contemporary Jewish Studies at the University of Miami and a consultant at the Holocaust Memorial Center on Miami Beach, Florida.

Since 2009 he has worked at the Shem Olam Institute for Education, Documentation and Research on Faith and the Holocaust in Israel.

As of August 2011, he was appointed Professor of Israeli and Jewish History at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. There he taught Holocaust studies and the modern history of the State of Israel. In the USA he also works for the Foundation for Holocaust Teaching Projects in Miami, Florida.

Work and action

Educational projects

Between 1993 and 1997 he initiated and led advanced training seminars for Polish educators and employees of the state museums in Auschwitz , Majdanek and Stutthof in the form of three-week seminars in Yad Vashem. In 1994 he initiated advanced training seminars for German educators in the form of two-week seminars in Germany, which he has been leading ever since. Since 1993 he has been leading global advanced training seminars for teachers from various countries (including the USA, Canada etc.), which he initiated. Since 1994 he has carried out educational projects with students at a large number of universities and grammar schools in Germany, Austria, Poland and Denmark. In mid-2013, an estimated 170,000 German, 3,000 Polish and 5,000 Danish students and teachers had already heard Greif's lectures, selected from his program, which includes around 20 topics he researched, mostly accompanied by image and film material.

Research, advice and journalistic work

Gideon Greif initiated the radio documentary Thessaloniki-Auschwitz , which reconstructs the extermination of the Greek Jews in Auschwitz . The documentary also shows her life before her deportation to Auschwitz in her home country, Greece. To produce the documentary, Greif traveled with 20 survivors and their children to Greece, to their birthplaces, and then to Auschwitz, where everyone reconstructed their fate in the camp. Some of the survivors were victims of the so-called “Medical Experiments”, others were in the “Sonderkommando”, one was in the orchestra and some were prisoners in Buna-Monowitz . The documentary broadcast on Galei Zahal won the Sokolow Prize for best documentary program and was accompanied by a documentary film.

Since 1991 Greif has been a consultant for the museum management at various conferences and educational projects in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland, where he also prepares exhibitions, films and teaching materials. He also works there as a translator for Israeli visitors. Since 1995 he has been preparing and leading advanced training courses for academic staff at the Survivors of the Shoah ( Visual History Foundation ) in Los Angeles , particularly for interviews with Holocaust survivors. Since 1999 he has been a board member and advisor for the American management of the foundation of the international advisory board of The Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation in New York City / Oswiecim .

Greif initiated the first international conference on the works of Yechiel Di-Nur, known as K. Tzetnik, the first Auschwitz writer. This conference was held in Calgary, Canada in March 2013 under the title Ka-Tztnik: The Influence of the First Holocaust Writer in Israel and Beyond . The conference was organized by the Institute for Israeli Studies at Calgary University. Renowned researchers from seven countries attended the conference.

For the musical theater play The Children of the Dead City , which was published on June 23, 2018, Greif took on the historical advice. The play tells about the children imprisoned in Theresienstadt , their life there and their murder in the Nazi death camps. The aim of the project are performances in schools in order to offer alternative didactic approaches through music in the sense of a culture of remembrance . The accompanying educational material co-authored by Gideon Greif is available to schools through the German Institute for Remembrance Culture.

Volunteering

Between 1980 and 1984 Gideon Greif was a representative of the first official organization for children of Holocaust survivors in Israel, "The Second Generation of Holocaust Survivors".

Greif also initiated the project of the authentic cattle wagon on the ramp at Birkenau, in which Hungarian Jews were transported to Birkenau in 1944. After three years of searching across Europe, a cattle wagon was found in Germany, near the Dutch border, and brought to Birkenau. Now the car is on the ramp in Birkenau, not far from the entrance gate as a memorial to the many thousands of Hungarian Jews who were murdered in the Birkenau gas chambers.

Works

Publications

  • The Historiography of the Holocaust . Jerusalem 1989 (co-editor Yisrael Gutman ).
  • We wept without tears ... eyewitness reports from the Jewish 'Sonderkommando' in Auschwitz. Cologne 1995; New edition Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-596-13914-7 ; Jerusalem 1999 (Hebrew); Warsaw 2002 (Polish); New Haven 2003 (English).
  • The Jeckes . Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-412-11599-1 .
  • The Shoah in the consciousness of the Israelis .
  • The Holocaust Encyclopedia . New Haven 2002: Several articles.
  • Levels of conflict in the understanding and awareness of the Shoah in Israeli society, 1945–2000 : In: Psychosozial. 26 (2003), No. 93, pp. 91-105.
  • A life cut off. Etty Hillesum's diary 1941–1943 : In: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Erinnerte Shoah. The literature of the survivors. Dresden 2003.
  • Indictment: Germans, Poles, Jews. The Hidden Diaries of Calel Perechodnik : In: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Erinnerte Shoah. The literature of the survivors. Dresden 2003.
  • My Brother's Keeper. Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Jerusalem 2004.
  • Between "Normality" and the "Absurd" - Spheres of Everyday Life in the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz - Birkenau " : In: John K. Roth, Jonathan Petropoulos (Ed.): Gray Zones. Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and its Aftermath. Claremont 2005.
  • Jewish fates during the Shoah - based on diaries. The case of Hillesum and Perechodnik. In: Psychosocial. 28 (2005), No. 100, pp. 85-92.
  • Uprising in Auschwitz. The revolt of the Jewish "Sonderkommando" on October 7, 1944 (with the help of Itamar Levin). Translated from the Hebrew by Beatrice Greif. Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-22473-8 .

In 2014 Gideon Greif finished his work on the book “Jakitto - The Boy from Thessaloniki in Auschwitz”, which was also published in Israel. "Jakitto" (nickname of Jacob Maestro), was deported to Auschwitz in March 1943. He worked there in the "work assignment," a position that enabled him to help many Jews get into better work units, and thus saved their lives.

Together with Christian Carlsen, Gideon Greif is currently completing a research on the special command in Auschwitz. The research, which is to be published in 2015, is based on various original sources and will reveal previously unknown and shocking aspects and phenomena in connection with the special command in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Greif and Carlsen have been working on this research for over 8 years. Your book will be over 1,400 pages.

interview

  • Roland Kaufhold : The Holocaust in the Consciousness of Israel and Germany . Interview with Gideon Greif. In: R. Kaufhold, B. Nitzschke (Ed.): Jewish identities in Germany after the Holocaust. (= Psychoanalysis. Texts on social research 16). No. 28, 2012, pp. 9-21.

Radio documentaries on Israeli radio

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  • The History of the Zionist Movement : Editor and Interviewer; Chapter 12, 1980.
  • The Yellow Star . History of the Shoah: editor and interviewer; 67 chapters, 1981-1983.
  • Where was the Sun? Central documentation for Yom HaShoah, the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day: editor-in-chief and interviewer, 1984–1993.
  • I wanted to live . Ruth Eliaz's statement: editor and interviewer; 1986.
  • I have been there . Documentary series on various topics: Editor; 1986-1989.
  • Saloniki - Auschwitz - The Life and Death of a Jewish Community : Editor and Interviewer; 1987.
  • The Sonderkommando People of Auschwitz-Birkenau . Testimony from Yehoshua Rosenblum: editor and interviewer; 1987.
  • The March of the Living . Live broadcast from Auschwitz-Birkenau: collaboration; 1988, 1989 and 1992.
  • 50 Years after the Reichskristallnacht . Live broadcast with eyewitnesses and historians: editor and interviewer; 1988.

Television documentaries

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  • Saloniki - Auschwitz : script, research and interviews; 1988.
  • Jewish Partisans in Eastern Europe : script, research and interviews; 1989.
  • Kielce Pogrom : Historical Advice; 1990.
  • The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising : Historical Advice; 1994.
  • The year 1938 - A Turning Point in the History of the Jews of Germany : Screenplay, research and interviews: 1998.
  • The Gold of the Jews . WDR production: historical advice and interviews; 1999.
  • Holocaust . ZDF production: Chapters on Auschwitz and The Final Solution : Historical advice; 2000.
  • Evidence - The Sonderkommando . Documentary with the participation of former members of the Sonderkommando, 2003.
  • Auschwitz, the Nazis and the Final Solution . Six-part documentary series by the BBC: Adviser for episodes 4 and 5; 2005.
  • Numbered . Dana Doron and Uriel Sinai (directors): historical advice; 2012.
  • The special command in Auschwitz-Birkenau . Michael Prazan (director); in preparation; the film will be ready in 2014.

Plays

  • I will get out of here! based on a chapter from "We Wept Tearless ..." ; Dr. Anton Dick-Boldes (director): author, research and interview; Berlin 1996.
  • The Dentist ; Piece for an actress based on "We wept without tears ..." with the actress Razzia Israel.

Exhibitions

Gideon Greif was scientific advisor for the exhibition "With me are six million Accusers - 50th Anniversary of Eichmann's Trial", which opened on April 11, 2011 in Yad Vashem. The exhibition describes Eichmann's career with the SS, his personal responsibility for the deportation of millions of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps, his attempts to hide after the war and the operation of his discovery and arrest in Argentina in 1960. The exhibition shows that Eichmann was not a “desk clerk”, but a fanatical enemy of the Jews who wanted to send them all to their deaths.

Together with Peter Siebers and the NS Documentation Center Cologne, Greif is the organizer of the exhibition “A Planet Called Auschwitz - Topography and Everyday Life in a Concentration and Extermination Camp”, which will open in November 2014 in the premises of the NS Documentation Center. The exhibition reconstructs every single building of the Auschwitz camp visually using drawings and also shows drawings made by inmates. The organizers cooperate with the memorial and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum .

International conferences and symposia (selection)

  • National Socialist Camp. Weimar 1995.
  • Seminars in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and Yad Vashem. Würzburg 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000.
  • Joint seminars by Yad Vashem and the Berlin Senate. Berlin 1997 and 1998.
  • The break in the spiral of violence . Göttingen 1999, Max Planck Institute for History.
  • I want to bear witness to the last . Victor Klemperer's diaries and the problems of the German-Jewish relationship history. Waren-Müritz 2000, Moses Mendelssohn Institute Potsdam.
  • The literary legacy of K. Tzetnik . Dresden 2000: Lecture, initiation and organization in cooperation with Prof. Walter Schmitz.
  • Diaries of Holocaust survivors . 2nd International Conference on Holocaust and Education, Yad Vashem 2000.
  • Unique Testimony - The Worldwide Project by Sonderkommando Survivors . 3rd International Conference on Holocaust and Education, Yad Vashem 2002.
  • Sonderkommandos and Working Jews , International Conference, Brussels 2013.
  • Ka-Tzetnik: The Influence of the First Holocaust Writer in Israel and Beyond , Calgary 2013.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iotFVwK9ls0
  2. ↑ hagalil.com
  3. ↑ hagalil.com
  4. ↑ also contains some minor corrections to the book
  5. ↑ museenkoeln.de
personal data
SURNAME Griffin, Gideon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli historian
DATE OF BIRTH 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Tel Aviv