Randolph L. Braham

Randolph L. Braham (born 20 December 1922) is an American historian and political scientist, born in Romania, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. A specialist in comparative politics and the Holocaust, he also is Director of the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies at the Graduate Center. He is the author or editor of over 60 books and co-authored or written chapters to 50 others. He also has published a large number of scholarly articles, the vast majority dealing with the Holocaust in Hungary.

Biography

Born in Bucharest in 1922, as (Adolf Ábrahám), he was raised in Dej, a small town in Transylvania. He spent 1943-45 in a labor service unit with the Hungarian army in the Ukraine and was later incarcerated in a Soviet POW camp. He came to America in early 1948. He received an M.A. from The City College of New York (1949), and a Ph.D. in political science from the The New School for Social Research (1952).

Professor Braham served as a member of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., and as a special advisor 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 citations in the New York State Assembly (1981) and the Congressional Record (1981, 1994, 2004). Again in 2014 he received the Jewish National Book Award for his three-volume The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary. Among his other honors are the Order of Merit Officer’s Cross of the Hungarian Republic (1995) (the highest civilian award of Hungary), the Pro Cultura Hungarica award of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture (2002), the Science for Society award of the Hungarian Academy of Science (2004), the Order of the Star of Romania , Commander Rank, of the Romanian Republic (2009), and the Medium Cross of the Republic of Hungary (2011).

In the 1998 Oscar-winning Academy Award for Documentary Feature film The Last Days, Professor Braham provided overviews of the Hungarian Holocaust. His life story is the subject of the documentary Rémálmok nyomában (produced by Duna-TV), which received the Camera Hungarica award in 2003. It is available in an English version titled Retracing a Nightmare.

In January 2014, in a widely published open letter on what he sees as increasing attempts by Hungary's rightist Orbán government to falsify history and whitewash the Horthy era, Prof. Braham returned his medals and resigned from the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, and forbade using his name in connection with the Holocaust Information Center in Budapest. Previously, in 2005, he resigned from the Order of the Star of Romania, after a noted rightist was honored with membership.

Selected works

• 1963: The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry: A Documentary Account (New York: Pro Arte, 2 vol.).
• 1977: The Hungarian Labor Service System, 1939-1945 (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
• 1981: The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary (New York: Columbia University Press, 2 vol.; 2nd ed. 1994).
• 1997: A népirtás politikája: A holocaust magyarországon [The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary] (Budapest: Belvárosi Könyvkiadó).
• 1997: (with Attila Pók) The Holocaust in Hungary: Fifty Years Later (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
• 2006: (with Brewster S. Chamberlin) The Holocaust in Hungary: Sixty Years Later (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
• 2007: A magyarországi holokauszt földrajzi enciklopédiája [The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary] (Budapest: Park Könyvkiadó, 3 vol.).
• 2008: Az észak-erdélyi holokauszt földrajzi enciklopédiája [The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania] (Budapest: Park Könyvkiadó; Cluj-Napoca: Koinónia, 3 vol.).
• 2011: (with William J. vanden Heuvel). The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
• 2011: Bibliography of the Holocaust in Hungary (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press).
• 2013: The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies), 3 vol.

External links

• Randolph R. Braham: "The Assault on the Historical Memory of the Holocaust" [In English] March 2014