Randolph L. Braham

Randolph L. Braham is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. A specialist in comparative politics and the Holocaust, he also is Director of The Graduate Center's Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. He is the author, co-author, or editor of over 60 books and has written over 300 articles and essays, the vast majority dealing with the Holocaust in Hungary.

Biography

Born in Bucharest in 1922, Professor Braham was raised in Dej, a small rural town in Romanian-held Transylvania. In 1940 Hungary was allotted the northern part of Translyvania and less than four years later the Jews of Northern Transylvania were destroyed along with those of Hungary, excepting Budapest. Among those murdered were Professor Braham's parents and many other relatives.

He spent 1943-45 in a forced labor unit with the Hungarian and German armies in the Ukraine and was later incarcerated in a Soviet POW camp. Shortly after the war he received his M.A. from The City College of New York, and his Ph.D. from the Graduate Faculty of The New School for Social Research. [http://www.huembwas.org/News%20Archive/HRBraham.htm]

Braham served as a member of the Academic Committee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., and as a special adviser for the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York. His works were used as major source books by courts of law in various countries, including Canada, Germany, Israel, and the United States in cases involving restitution and war crimes.

His two-volume "The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary" won the 1981 Jewish National Book Award (USA), and earned him two citations in the Congressional Record. Among his other honors are the Order of Merit Officer’s Cross of the Hungarian Republic (1995), the Pro Cultura Hungarica Award of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture (2002), and Officer Rank of the Order of the Star of Romania (2004). He returned his 2004 award in protest against the Romanian President's awarding the same award to a Rightist extremist.

In the 1998 Academy Award for Documentary Feature-winning film The Last Days Braham provided on-screen overviews of the Hungarian Holocaust.

elected works

*1963. The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry: A Documentary Account. 2 Vol. New York: Pro Arte.
*1977. The Hungarian Labor Service System, 1939-1945. Distributed by Columbia University Press. ISBN 0914710249
*1994. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. Revised and enlarged edition. 2 Vol. Distributed by Columbia University Press. ISBN 0880332476
*1997. "A népirtás politikája. A Holocaust Magyarországon." 2 Vol. [The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary] . Budapest:Belvárosi Könyvkiadó.
*2001. The Holocaust in Hungary: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography, 1984-2000. Distributed by Columbia University Press. ISBN 0880334819
*1997. Braham and Attila Pók. The Holocaust in Hungary: Fifty Years Later. Distributed by Columbia University Press. ISBN 088033374X
*2007. "A Magyarországi Holokauszt Földrajzi Enciklópédiája" [The Geographic Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary] . Budapest:Park Publishing, 3 Vol. "English translation forthcoming."
*2007. Braham and Julia Bock. The Holocaust in Hungary: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography, 2000-2007. "In press."