Esther Gitman

Dr. Esther Gitman is a Croatian-Jewish historian who is an expert on the rescue of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia from the Holocaust. [ [http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/fellowship/fellows/fellow_detail.php?projectyear=2007&fellow=gitman The Centre for Advanced Holocaust Studies] ]

Gitman was born in Sarajevo, which was part of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. Her family survived the Holocaust through the help of non-Jews. [ [http://www.voanews.com/croatian/archive/2008-04/2008-04-09-voa1.cfm And in the darkest times, theres exists the light of great-spirited individuals - historian Esther Gitman about the saving of Jews in the NDH] ] She has lived in the United States of America since 1972. [ [http://www.hkr.hr/?sec=3&tid=1&cid=23528 International symposium on blessed Aloysius Stepinac] ]

Gitman received a bachelor's degree in history and sociology from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and a graduate degree in criminal justice from Long Island University. She earned a Ph.D. from City University in New York in Jewish history.

She began her research into the Croatian-Jewish history in 1999 with her dissertation "Rescue of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945." In 2002 she received a Fulbright scholarship to travel to Croatia to continue her research. [ [http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2008/08-060.html Holocaust Historian to Discuss Fate of Croatian Jewry] ] In 2008, Gitman participated in a conference on Aloysius Stepinac, the senior member of the Catholic Church among the Croats in the Second World War. [ [http://www.vecernji.hr/newsroom/news/croatia/3164173/index.do American Jew in defense of blessed Stepinac] ]

Gitman has compiled databases on Jews who survived from Sarajevo and Zagreb. [ [http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/holocaust/0142_Sarajevo_survivors.html Sarajevo Survivors Who Went to Palestine, December 1948] ] [ [http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/0153_Zagreb_survivors.html Zagreb Survivor Lists] ]

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