Introduction

Raul Hilberg has spent his entire scholarly life studying the Holocaust. His first edition of The Destruction of the European Jews was regarded as the definitive study of the Holocaust until he published a three-volume revised version in 1985. He was a member of the President's Commission on the Holocaust from 1978 to 1979 and a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council from 1980 to 1988. He has also served as an expert witness for the United States in denaturalization and deportation cases and for other legal proceedings in Canada, Australia, and Scotland. Born in Vienna, Hilberg came to the United States via Cuba. He served in the United States Army in 1944-1946, graduated from Brooklyn College, was a research specialist in the War Documentation Project at Alexandria, Virginia, in 1951 and 1952, earned his Ph.D. In 1978 Hilberg was appointed the John G. McCullough Professor of Political Science.