Yitzhak Arad

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Yitzhak Arad (2016)

Yitzhak Arad ( Hebrew יצחק ארד; * November 11, 1926 as Izhak Rudnicki in Święciany , Poland , today Lithuania ; † May 6, 2021 ) was an Israeli historian , brigadier general of the Israeli armed forces , Soviet partisan and member of the NKVD .

Life

Yitzhak Arad was born as Izhak Rudnicki in 1926 in Święciany in the Second Polish Republic (today: Švenčionys , Lithuania ). He belonged to the Zionist youth movement Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyyoni. In an interview with Harry J. Cargas published in 1993 , he stated that he was active in the underground of the Vilnius ghetto from 1942 to 1944 . From February 1943 he fought alongside Soviet partisans of the Markov Brigade against the Nazis. There he was confronted with Soviet anti-Semitism . Nevertheless, he stayed with the troops until the end of the war, where he also met Abba Kovner . While working for the brigade, he learned to sweep mines and lay ambushes and took part in actions near Narach , Belarus . There he also took part in a fight in Girdan against Lithuanian partisans who were hiding there and who fought as collaborators for the Nazis. His partisan unit is said to have killed more than 250 Lithuanians. For his resistance struggle he was awarded the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War” , which was rarely given to Jews who were accused of cowardice in the partisan units.

In 1945, after the end of the war, Arad took part in the Aliyah Bet and emigrated to Palestine . This he committed by Soviet law desertion . He became a soldier in the Palmach and fought in the Israeli War of Independence . In the newly established State of Israel he became a member of the Israel Defense Forces . There he worked, among other things, as a trainer and left military service with the rank of brigadier general .

He then became a professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University . His main research interests were initially the Second World War and the Holocaust. He published numerous writings, mostly in Hebrew. He researched the Holocaust in the German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union. In 1993 Arad received an honorary doctorate from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń .

From 1972 to 1993 he was director at Yad Vashem and later served the memorial as an advisor. This made him the last Holocaust survivor to hold this post. During his 21-year term in office, the Memorial to the Children , the Valley of the Communities and a reproduction of the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial by Nathan Rapaport were built. He also worked as a consultant for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum .

In 2008 he received the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize .

He died on May 6, 2021 at the age of 94.

Investigation into the Koniuchy massacre

In 2006 a newspaper report appeared in the Lithuanian newspaper Respublika , in which Arad was described as a " war criminal" . According to the report, he was believed to have played a leading role in the Koniuchy massacre . The Lithuanian public prosecutor's office investigated until autumn 2008, but then dropped the charges against him and other partisans.

Arad himself did not deny his actions and said that even today he is proud that he fought against the Nazis and the Lithuanian collaborators. After all, these were the murderers of his family who died during the Holocaust. The investigation sparked protests. Many saw it as an attempt by Lithuania to acquit itself of its inheritance and complicity in the Holocaust.

Fonts (selection)

  • The "Final Solution" in Lithuania in the Light of German Documentation , in: Michael R. Marrus  : The "Final Solution" outside Germany , Volume 2 (= The Nazi Holocaust: historical articles of the destruction of European Jews . Volume 4). Meckler, Westport, CT 1989, ISBN 0-88736-258-3 , OCLC 311127743 pp. 737-776 (first: Yad Vashem Studies , 1976 (English)).
  • The Partisan: From the Valley of Death to Mt. Zion. Holocaust Library (1979). ISBN 978-0896040113 .
  • Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust . Ktav Pub & Distributors (1981). ISBN 978-0870687532
  • Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: the Operation Reinhard death camps (1987) ISBN 0-253-21305-3
  • The Holocaust in the Soviet Union , University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE / Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2009, ISBN 978-0-8032-2059-1 (English).

literature

  • Arno Lustiger : To the fight to the life and death! The book on the resistance of the Jews 1933–1945 . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-462-02292-X , p. 368f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ EJP | News | Eastern Europe | Lithuania wants to grill top Israeli historian over war crimes. July 31, 2012, accessed January 24, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b An Interview with Yitzhak Arad from Voices from the Holocaust by Harry J. Cargas, Editor: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. Online: [1] . Retrieved March 3, 2020 ( Internet Archive ).
  3. ↑ Dr. Yitzhak Arad . In: International Society for Yad Vashem, Inc (Ed.): Martyrdom & Resistance . tape 37 , 1 (September / October 2010), ISSN  0892-1571 , pp. 1 & 8 ( archive.org [PDF]).
  4. ↑ Yitzhak Arad: The partisan: from the valley of death to Mt. Zion . Holocaust Library: [distributed by Schocken Books], January 1, 1979 ( google.pl [accessed March 3, 2020]).
  5. ^ A b c Daniel Brook: Lithuania's Startling Campaign to Erase Its Ugly History of Nazi Collaboration. July 26, 2015, accessed March 3, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Arad Yitzhak. In: jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved March 3, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Doktorzy Honoris Causa - Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika. Retrieved March 3, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Скончался бывший директор музея "Яд ва-Шем" Ицхак Арад. Retrieved May 6, 2021 (Russian).
  9. ^ The Crime of Surviving. In: Tabletmag.com. May 3, 2010, accessed March 3, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Tim Whewell: Reopening Lithuania's old wounds . Ed .: BBC News. July 21, 2008 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed March 3, 2020]).
  11. ^ Yossi Melman: Nazi Hunter: Lithuania Hunts Ex-partisans, Lets War Criminals Roam Free . In: Haaretz . August 7, 2008 ( Haaretz.com [accessed March 3, 2020]).
personal data
SURNAME Arad, Yitzhak
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Arad, Yitsḥaḳ; Arad, Yitzak; Arad, Yitshak; Arad, Yiṣḥaq; Arad, Icchak; Arad, Yitzhak; Rudnicki, Izhak; Rudnicki, Isaac; Arad, Isacc
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli historian, general in the Israeli armed forces and Soviet partisan; from 1972 to 1993 director of Yad Vashem (1972–1993)
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Švenčionys , Second Polish Republic
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 2021