Raul Hilberg

[king ubu]

Has anyone read it? Can anyone recommend it?

I saw Claude Lanzmann's film "Shoah" (in two sessions, the second of which took place last night), and I'm very very impressed (if that word is allowed, adequate it is not, I think, but I'm cannot express these things in english as I could do in german).

Also, I read two excerpts of Hilberg's book, and found his general thesis, his way of concluding things etc pretty sound, and foremost, extremely thought-provoking.

ubu

[Simon Weil]

He's a proper authority, deeply respected. But no-one gets this stuff entirely right, not him - and not certainly Lanzmann. I found Lanzmann's use of hidden camera highly questionable - so that throws the whole thing into question.

I like Primo Levi, myself.

Simon Weil

[king ubu]

He's a proper authority, deeply respected. But no-one gets this stuff entirely right, not him - and not certainly Lanzmann. I found Lanzmann's use of hidden camera highly questionable - so that throws the whole thing into question.

I like Primo Levi, myself.

Simon Weil

Simon, I found the use of the hidden camera problematic, too.

However, the Lanzmann film - I tend to look at it more as an attempt to document human memory (Gedächtnis) and ways of its functioning than a documentation of the factual desctruction per se - is totally impressive, extremely difficult, also hard to bear. And it certainly has its merits, as part of a growing archive.

By stating that the film does show more about human memory than about "facts" and "history", I don't want to deny that these facts have taken place, obviously - some things are indeed made very clear by the film.

I intend to read at least one of Levi's books soon, maybe also Imre Kertesz. Do you know Friedrich Dürrenmatt's text "Das Hirn" (the brain), or Peter Weiss' "Meine Ortschaft" (my place), or his "Die Vermittlung" (about the Frankfurter Auschwitzprozess)?

ubu

[brownie]

Raul Hilberg is the best book relating the Holocaust, as far as I am concerned. It is also the most depressing book I have ever read.

I have the same opinion of Claude Lanzmann's 'Shoah' film. A totally unique film on a totally unique event. And another depressing masterpiece.

When I put down Hilberg's book, I was done. I am not an expert on accuracies but I remember that when the French translation was published in 1988, a number of authorities praised the exactness of the documents Hilberg unearthed.

And Lanzmann's 'Shoah' is the only film that tries to show what the Holocaust must have been like. Its icy tone and imaging was the proper way to evocate those events. I have never been able to stomach Spielberg's 'Schindler's List' or Begnini 'La Vita e Bella' even though I am a fan of both. I'm with Lanzmann on this and find it offensive (Lanzmann is much more violent) when filmmakers try to recreate what must have happened . This is one event that cannot be recreated.

Ubu, once you read Primo Levi's 'If This Is a Man', you'll never be able to forget it. An essential book!

[Simon Weil]

...Claude Lanzmann's 'Shoah' film. A totally unique film on a totally unique event. And another depressing masterpiece.

....Lanzmann's 'Shoah' is the only film that tries to show what the Holocaust must have been like. Its icy tone and imaging was the proper way to evocate those  events.

For me, Lanzmann's aesthetics sort of got in the way of the subject. You know, I go to that film and get a kind of fusion of his aesthetic sensibility and the Holocaust. When I've watched it, it wasn't even that I was seeing the Holocaust through his aesthetic, rather that I couldn't tell what was his way of looking at the things and what was the past.

I have never been able to stomach Spielberg's 'Schindler's List' or Begnini 'La Vita e Bella' even though I am a fan of both. I'm with Lanzmann on this and find it offensive (Lanzmann is much more violent) when filmmakers try to recreate what must have happened . This is one event that cannot be recreated.

I've never seen the Begnini film. It just sounds ghastly. The Spielberg, I think, does have value - even if it's sentimentalized and glossy, it still manages to create a bearable 3 hours about this subject for a mass audience - and I think that's no small achievement.

But these things are an aesthetic minefield - apart from being a moral etc one. I agree with the basic thrust of Lanzmann's argument, which I take to be the impossibility of making a faithful reconstruction of the Holocaust on-screen.

I think the failed attempts are sometimes worthwhile.

Simon Weil

Edited April 23, 2004 by Simon Weil

[brownie]

Simon, agree with your assessment. Except when you mention that 'Lanzmann's aesthetics sort of got in the way of the subject'.

I think that Lanzmann did everything humanly and cinematographically possible to avoid getting into aesthetics. And I tend to think this is one of the triumphs of his film.

The distance he manages to maintain throughout the more than nine hours of his film is mesmerizing!

[Simon Weil]

...the Lanzmann film - I tend to look at it more as an attempt to document human memory (Gedächtnis) and ways of its functioning than a documentation of the factual desctruction per se - is totally impressive, extremely difficult, also hard to bear. And it certainly has its merits, as part of a growing archive.

By stating that the film does show more about human memory than about "facts" and "history", I don't want to deny that these facts have taken place, obviously - some things are indeed made very clear by the film.

I seem to have kind of answered that in my reply to Brownie. I didn't experience problems with people dis-remembering (or remembering wrong) the Holocaust - I think that's a perfectly valid point - it's just that I felt he (Lanzmann) got mixed up in there too. The whole thing was this kind of seamless monolithic construct - that was my experience of it.

I intend to read at least one of Levi's books soon, maybe also Imre Kertesz. Do you know Friedrich Dürrenmatt's text "Das Hirn" (the brain), or Peter Weiss' "Meine Ortschaft" (my place), or his "Die Vermittlung" (about the Frankfurter Auschwitzprozess)?

Honestly, Ubu, I can only take so much of this stuff. I read "If this is a Man" and just felt I had found my legitimate voice to take me through the morass. After that, I kind of gave up.

I mean, I've got loads of factual books, but he's the voice I hear.

Simon Weil

[Simon Weil]

Simon, agree with your assessment. Except when you mention that 'Lanzmann's aesthetics sort of got in the way of the subject'.

I think that Lanzmann did everything humanly and cinematographically possible to avoid getting into aesthetics. And I tend to think this is one of the triumphs of his film.

The distance he manages to maintain throughout the more than nine hours of his film is mesmerizing!

Brownie, it's just one of those things where "I hear it like that". I'm right at the edge of my sensibility when I get that response - so I wouldn't want to make any big thing about it. I can see that he has made an attempt to keep his aesthetics out of it...

And the fact is I have changed my mind about these sort of edge of sensibility responses in the past.

But the hidden camera is playing on my mind.

Simon Weil

[king ubu]

Simon and brownie, thanks for your points!

Simon, for me, there's no problem with Lanzmann's aesthetics, either, but I guess that is a personal thing, and I can imagine that it is in fact possible to feel the way you do.

Regarding Spielberg, you might be right that his film was quite an achievement - yet still it has to be viewed as offensive, in some way, in my opinion.

Me neither saw Benigni's film, I always refused to see it, the idea of it being a horrifying thing for me.

As far as reading about it: I was done after reading thirty or forty pages of Hilberg. You really should close yourself into some silent empty room to read, no daylight, no other people, no human noise.

Simon, I do understand your not wanting to read more. I have to be careful right now, not to overdo it.

Some other authors, though, that I'd like to hear if anyone has read some: Rymkiewicz, Borowski, Klüger? Kertesz?

I think I will read one or two of Borowski's text before going for Levi.

And how about Francesco Rosi's film "La tregua"? (I will see it on sunday).

ubu

[king ubu]

Some more thoughts.

"La tregua" was maybe made with similar thoughts as "Schindler's List" - bringing the Shoah to the fore again, finding an audience etc. However, it is all the less Hollywood-like. A pretty moving film, and John Turturro (sp?) is very good as Levi (the film's based on Levi's second book, telling the odyssey of his way back home to Torino).

Some critique is necessary, though: first, the music is much too dramatic. Second: there are b/w sequences, short sequences all, interspersed, sequences of remembering, moments when Levi thinks back about scenes he lived through during his time as a prisoner.

The big plus, however, is that the film is slow, not trying to catch attention with overtly sensationalist images, and generally a very moving and touching account of how these human beings turn again into just that: human beings. Touching it is because much care is given for details (as usual, in Rosi’s films), and the focus often is on small things that are nothing special for us, in daily life, but things the “prisoners” were deprived of.

I am reading now “Si questo é un uomo” (in german), Hilberg is on its way, and I also bought the books of Kertesz (“Roman eines Schicksallosen”), Jorge Semprun (his first book, it seems), and Giorgio Agamben’s book about “Auschwitz”.

Then I also read two of Tadeusz Borowski’s stories (“Bei uns in Auschwitz” in german, and another one the title of which escapes me). These stories are very strong, too. Borowski was a polish “arian” in the Nazi’s scheme of things, thus did not have to deal with the situation of his destruction (he commited suicide in 1951, though, and his experience in Auschwitz most probably was strongly connected with it). What he shows us is the “microcosmos” that did develop inside the Auschwitz camps (Stammlager Auschwitz I and Birkenau/Auschwitz II, the destruction camp). Also moving moments, and moments of normality in the midst of terror – a normality that has something perverse about it.

So much for now,

ubu

[Simon Weil]

Then I also read two of Tadeusz Borowski’s stories (“Bei uns in Auschwitz” in german, and another one the title of which escapes me). These stories are very strong, too. Borowski was a polish “arian” in the Nazi’s scheme of things, thus did not have to deal with the situation of his destruction (he commited suicide in 1951, though, and his experience in Auschwitz most probably was strongly connected with it). What he shows us is the “microcosmos” that did develop inside the Auschwitz camps (Stammlager Auschwitz I and Birkenau/Auschwitz II, the destruction camp). Also moving moments, and moments of normality in the midst of terror – a normality that has something perverse about it.

For some reason this struck a chord in me. So I did a web search and came up with this site.

It says:

The specific, always detectable tone of Borowski's stories, is the outcome of the conception of tragedy which he adopted. It has nothing to do with the classical conception based on the necessity of choice between two systems of value. The hero of Borowski's stories is a hero deprived of all choice. He finds himself in a situation without choice because every choice is base. The tragedy lies not in the necessity of choosing but in the impossibility of making a choice. The emergence of such situations, whose inhumanity lies in their lack of any alternative, Borowski describes as characteristic of the new times.

Sounds like the core idea of "Sophie's Choice". Don't feel like reading any further, just at the moment, but I think I will investigate Borowski.

So... Thanks, Ubu.

Simon Weil

[king ubu]

Then I also read two of Tadeusz Borowski’s stories (“Bei uns in Auschwitz” in german, and another one the title of which escapes me). These stories are very strong, too. Borowski was a polish “arian” in the Nazi’s scheme of things, thus did not have to deal with the situation of his destruction (he commited suicide in 1951, though, and his experience in Auschwitz most probably was strongly connected with it). What he shows us is the “microcosmos” that did develop inside the Auschwitz camps (Stammlager Auschwitz I and Birkenau/Auschwitz II, the destruction camp). Also moving moments, and moments of normality in the midst of terror – a normality that has something perverse about it.

For some reason this struck a chord in me. So I did a web search and came up with this site.

It says:

The specific, always detectable tone of Borowski's stories, is the outcome of the conception of tragedy which he adopted. It has nothing to do with the classical conception based on the necessity of choice between two systems of value. The hero of Borowski's stories is a hero deprived of all choice. He finds himself in a situation without choice because every choice is base. The tragedy lies not in the necessity of choosing but in the impossibility of making a choice. The emergence of such situations, whose inhumanity lies in their lack of any alternative, Borowski describes as characteristic of the new times.

Sounds like the core idea of "Sophie's Choice". Don't feel like reading any further, just at the moment, but I think I will investigate Borowski.

So... Thanks, Ubu.

Simon Weil

Thanks to you, Simon, for that link!

Be warned: for me, getting over the first few pages of Borowski was quite tough - things seem so "normal", so "human", at first sight - only to turn out actually double as hard and degrading just becasue of that sudden impression of normality and mankindliness that you get at first...

May I ask, what is "Sophie's Choice"? A book? A film?

ubu

[Simon Weil]

May I ask, what is "Sophie's Choice"? A book? A film?

ubu

It's a book by William Styron which was made into a film by Alan Pakula. I know the film, which is about a Polish woman trying to make a new life in America after her Holocaust experiences. It is strange and unquiet and I have equivocal feelings about it. But it's worth seeing. Haven't read the book.

I'm not sure it'd be your thing though, Ubu.

Simon Weil

[king ubu]

May I ask, what is "Sophie's Choice"? A book? A film?

ubu

It's a book by William Styron which was made into a film by Alan Pakula. I know the film, which is about a Polish woman trying to make a new life in America after her Holocaust experiences. It is strange and unquiet and I have equivocal feelings about it. But it's worth seeing. Haven't read the book.

I'm not sure it'd be your thing though, Ubu.

Simon Weil

Thanks, Simon. I think I pass on the book (as I have what might turn into an overdose of books ahead right now), and keep my eyes open in case the film will be screened somewhere.

By the way, I saw excerpts of "Shoah" again, one week after I saw these parts (from Pt.2, Chapter 1 - the barber-shop scene and the story of Müller who was already in the gas chamber). Now the crazy thing was, I could anticipate almost each word. What these people say sticks to the mind - you don't forget it! A friend told me it was the same thing for him - when he saw the film the second time, he remembered everything.

ubu

[Simon Weil]

By the way, I saw excerpts of "Shoah" again, one week after I saw these parts (from Pt.2, Chapter 1 - the barber-shop scene and the story of Müller who was already in the gas chamber). Now the crazy thing was, I could anticipate almost each word. What these people say sticks to the mind - you don't forget it! A friend told me it was the same thing for him - when he saw the film the second time, he remembered everything.

ubu

I don't really remember what they say, but some of the images...some of the images are indelible. The guy who sang in the small boat in that wood. The train stopped and the driver getting ready to leave. The crummy concentration camp officer spieling out his lies....Oh, it's all very "the banality of evil".

Hadn't occurred to me until now, but that's probably why...

Simon Weil

Edited April 30, 2004 by Simon Weil

[king ubu]

By the way, I saw excerpts of "Shoah" again, one week after I saw these parts (from Pt.2, Chapter 1 - the barber-shop scene and the story of Müller who was already in the gas chamber). Now the crazy thing was, I could anticipate almost each word. What these people say sticks to the mind - you don't forget it! A friend told me it was the same thing for him - when he saw the film the second time, he remembered everything.

ubu

I don't really remember what they say, but some of the images...some of the images are indelible. The guy who sang in the small boat in that wood. The train stopped and the driver getting ready to leave. The crummy concentration camp officer spieling out his lies....Oh, it's all very "the banality of evil".

Hadn't occurred to me until now, but that's probably why...

Simon Weil

I am not so sure about the "banality" - I mean, maybe in the perspective of the single "actors" you can speak of "banality", but as a whole, the Shoah, the destruction of the jews in Europe, was something farthest from "banal".

Somehow I find that "bonmot" of the "banality of the evil" offensive (not personally, but still...)

On "Shoah": you are right about remembering images. There's the german expression "fahrende Züge" which means "driving trains", but at the same time can be read (and it seems Kafka uses this expression in this sense somewhere in his diary) as - forgive my bad translation - "moving traits of one's face" (the mimic). In that sense, the images of the trains, actually out of direct context with what Lanzmann does otherwise in/with the film, make a lot of sense, as they're somehow an extension of the faces of the imperfect witnesses in front of the camera.

ubu

[Simon Weil]

I am not so sure about the "banality" - I mean, maybe in the perspective of the single "actors" you can speak of "banality", but as a whole, the Shoah, the destruction of the jews in Europe, was something farthest from "banal".

Somehow I find that "bonmot" of the "banality of the evil" offensive (not personally, but still...)

Well, the whole thing of "we were just following orders", so that responsibility seems to evade you. It is just the most amazingly banal statement to make about such a horrendous exercise. And yet people make it. And they can't see the incongruity at all. Like somewhere their brain got clogged up with all the evil and all they can utter is banalities and platitudes.

It's like banality is a defense against seeing their part in evil.

Simon Weil

Edited April 30, 2004 by Simon Weil

[king ubu]

I am not so sure about the "banality" - I mean, maybe in the perspective of the single "actors" you can speak of "banality", but as a whole, the Shoah, the destruction of the jews in Europe, was something farthest from "banal".

Somehow I find that "bonmot" of the "banality of the evil" offensive (not personally, but still...)

Well, the whole thing of "we were just following orders", so that responsibility seems to evade you. It is just the most amazingly banal statement to make about such a horrendous exercise. And yet people make it. And they can't see the incongruity at all. Like somewhere their brain got clogged up with all the evil and all they can utter is banalities and platitudes.

It's like banality is a defense against seeing their part in evil.

Simon Weil

That does make sense, yes.

The inconguity you mention, however, is what causes such stark terror when you see the nazi parts of "Shoah" - worst being the man who was second in command of the Warzsaw getto. These things really are beyond grasp.

Simon, or anyone, did you read/study Karl Mannheim's and/or Jan Assmann's theories on memory?

ubu

[Simon Weil]

I am not so sure about the "banality" - I mean, maybe in the perspective of the single "actors" you can speak of "banality", but as a whole, the Shoah, the destruction of the jews in Europe, was something farthest from "banal".

Somehow I find that "bonmot" of the "banality of the evil" offensive (not personally, but still...)

Well, the whole thing of "we were just following orders", so that responsibility seems to evade you. It is just the most amazingly banal statement to make about such a horrendous exercise. And yet people make it. And they can't see the incongruity at all. Like somewhere their brain got clogged up with all the evil and all they can utter is banalities and platitudes.

It's like banality is a defense against seeing their part in evil.

Simon Weil

That does make sense, yes.

The inconguity you mention, however, is what causes such stark terror when you see the nazi parts of "Shoah" - worst being the man who was second in command of the Warzsaw getto. These things really are beyond grasp.

That film is just so full of banal images which are somehow terribly memorable. It's just, somehow, like the evil is so unspeakable - so unvisualizable - that all it can do is hide behind these images. Which do, en masse, and over the extent of the film, create this sense of massive, unvisualizable evil.

But I'm inclined to think that there is some sort of connection between the banality of the images as a carrier, by implication, of the unvisualizable nature of the Holocaust - and the banality of processes through which the Holocaust was carried out. That is I draw a distinction between the underlying reality, which is too appalling for Man to grasp, and the ways people relate to it.

Like people needed to keep the processes banal to carry the Holocaust out and deceive themselves that they were untouched.

"Normality" reigned. The more normality, the more evil.

Simon Weil

[brownie]

Somehow I find that "bonmot" of the "banality of the evil" offensive (not personally, but still...)

Ubu, 'banality of evil' was not a bon mot. It was an icily exact image coined by Hannah Arendt to describe Adolf Eichman at his trial. Hannah Arendt was at the Eichman trial in Jerusalem in 1961-1962 to write a series of articles for The New Yorker' magazine. Her articles were collected in her famous book 'The Banality of Evil'.

[king ubu]

Somehow I find that "bonmot" of the "banality of the evil" offensive (not personally, but still...)

Ubu, 'banality of evil' was not a bon mot. It was an icily exact image coined by Hannah Arendt to describe Adolf Eichman at his trial. Hannah Arendt was at the Eichman trial in Jerusalem in 1961-1962 to write a series of articles for The New Yorker' magazine. Her articles were collected in her famous book 'The Banality of Evil'.

brownie, forgive me the use of the term "bon mot" - I used it in lack of a better one, and I know I shouldn't have used it, actually.

Arendt is on my reading list, too.

Allow me a question: the "banality"-thing - does it still work once you see the incongruity in people's votes? Does it not imply that they didn't know and *only* carried out orders? This is a question, and I don't want to offend anyone.

I'm just critical about the term "banality". As long as "banality" is only used to relate to statements of these people, alright, but it may not be applied either to what they really did (factual), or to the whole machinery. (And I don't want to imply that Arendt does use it thus - I did not read her book.)

ubu

[king ubu]

And let me add, Simon, that your remarks in the post right before brownie's do make sense, also regarding my last post.

ubu

[Larry Kart]

I recently read Chistopher Browning's "The Origins of The Final Solution, 1939-1942" (U. of Nebraska Press), published this March, and found it very enlightening, a real step forward in nailing down the stages by which Final Solution came into being. I wouldn't say that Browning supports Arendt's "banality of evil" stance (I'm with Gershom Scholem on what underlies Arendt's thinking there), but Browning's account of the "logic" by which the Final Solution proceeded has a great deal of historical versimilutude IMO. Here's an interview with Browning:

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/intervi...t2004-02-11.htm

[brownie]

brownie, forgive me the use of the term "bon mot" - I used it in lack of a better one, and I know I shouldn't have used it, actually.

Arendt is on my reading list, too.

Ubu, no need to apologize. Nobody here has been offended (hope so, anyway).

The banality in this specific case applied to the manner with which Eichman carried his orders to run the trains to and from the extermination camps right on schedule without giving a tenth of a second a thought to what all his work as the perfect train master implied. He was really the nazi Organization Man in all his banality.

Arendt of course described this much more eloquently than I would even dare to.

I think her book is a better read than Hilberg's. Despair is where you go after reading his book. Terribly factual and awfully depressing.

[king ubu]

Raul Hilberg, 81, Historian Who Wrote of the Holocaust as a Bureaucracy, Dies

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: August 7, 2007

Raul Hilberg (Nancie Battaglia, 1985)

Raul Hilberg, a Jewish émigré from Nazi-occupied Vienna who helped begin the field of Holocaust studies with his long and minutely detailed 1961 study of the massacre of European Jews, died Saturday in Williston, Vt. He was 81.

The cause was lung cancer, said Jeffrey R. Wakefield, a spokesman for the University of Vermont, where Mr. Hilberg had taught for 35 years.

In his landmark work, “The Destruction of the European Jews,” Mr. Hilberg said the Holocaust had been the result of a huge bureaucratic machine with thousands of participants, not the fulfillment of a preconceived plan or a single order by Hitler.

As uncountable separate instructions were passed on, formally and informally, to a range of actors that included train schedulers and gas chamber architects, responsibility became ever more diluted, he argued, even as the machinery of death churned inexorably ahead.

“For these reasons, an administrator, clerk or uniformed guard never referred to himself as a perpetrator,” Mr. Hilberg said in an interview with The Chicago Tribune in 1992. “He realized, however, that the process of destruction was deliberate, and that once he had stepped into this maelstrom, his deed would be indelible.”

Though some critics said Mr. Hilberg had understated the impact of historic German anti-Semitism, his broad conclusions were based on painstaking research. He examined microfilm of thousands upon thousands of prosaic documents like train schedules and memorandums between minor officials.

“This head-against-the-wall technique is the only virtue I can parade without blushing,” he said last year when Germany gave him with its Order of Merit, the highest tribute it can pay to someone who is not a German citizen.

The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper wrote that Mr. Hilberg’s book “reveals, methodically, fully and clearly, the development of both the technical and psychological process; the machinery and mentality whereby one whole society sought to isolate and destroy another, which, for centuries, had lived in its midst.”

Mr. Trevor-Roper called the book’s most surprising revelation, and its least welcome one, its suggestion that at least some Jews cooperated in their own annihilation. Examples included Jews who had helped organize deportations or led victims to gas chambers. Mr. Hilberg argued that Jews had a long history of passivity and that some had mistakenly calculated that the Nazis would not destroy what they could economically exploit.

Many historians, survivors and Jewish leaders disagreed, pointing to examples of Jewish resistance. But Holocaust historians of all views began using terminology Mr. Hilberg had devised, including that of calling the Holocaust’s principals perpetrators, victims and bystanders.

Raul Hilberg was born on June 2, 1926, in Vienna. In his memoir, “The Politics of Memory: Journey of a Holocaust Historian” (1996), he said his father, Michael, had been a “middleman,” someone who bought household goods for people needing credit and paid him in installments. In 1938, the occupying Nazis arrested him but released him because he was a World War I veteran.

The Hilbergs emigrated to Brooklyn, where Michael worked in a factory and Raul attended Lincoln High School. His studies at Brooklyn College were interrupted when he was drafted into the Army. His unit was housed in the Nazi Party’s former offices in Munich, where Mr. Hilberg was fascinated by crates containing Hitler’s personal library.

He returned to Brooklyn College, where he quit chemistry for political science and history. He went on to Columbia, where he insisted on writing his doctoral dissertation on the Holocaust, which few academics were studying. His adviser, Franz Neumann, warned him that his choice of subject might be his academic funeral.

At least five publishers rejected his major book. It was published by a small Chicago house after a wealthy patron agreed to buy 1,300 copies to go to libraries.

His caustic personal style, which contrasted with the monotone of his histories, did not always help. When academics asked about his subject area, Mr. Hilberg was prone to reply, “I study dead Jews.”

He next taught at Hunter College and landed a federal job helping to catalog documents being released from German archives. He copied material by hand so he could use it for his own research.

Mr. Hilberg started teaching at Vermont in 1956 and retired in 1991. In addition to writing and editing five books besides “The Destruction of the European Jews” and his memoirs, Mr. Hilberg produced two more editions of that book (1985 and 2003), adding considerable material.

Mr. Hilberg’s first marriage, to Christine Hemenway, ended in divorce. He is survived by two children from that marriage, David, of Brooklyn, and Deborah, of Jerusalem, and his wife, the former Gwendolyn Montgomery.

The multitudinous materials Mr. Hilberg examined convinced him that those very documents were the strongest argument against those who contended the Holocaust had never happened, he told The International Herald Tribune in 1996.

“These individuals are not familiar with the archives, or they would see that nobody could forge these millions of documents,” he said.

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/us/07hil...amp;oref=slogin