Livia Rothkirchen

Livia Rothkirchen (1922-2013), historian, author and archivist, made distinct contribution to documenting the Holocaust, specifically issues flowing from Nazi Germany’s peacetime take-over of the democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia. Nearly two years before the outbreak of World War II, Germany seized the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia with the assent of major European states. Germany then dismembered Czechoslovakia, replacing it with German-controlled Bohemia and Moravia, and a nominally independent Slovak state, which collaborated with Nazi policy. In all three areas, harsh regulations were imposed on Jewish citizens, most of whom were ultimately deported and killed. Rothkirchen examines the impact of decisions of Europe's political leaders on general society, on Jewish communal leaders attempting to save their communities, and on Jewish individuals attempting to save themselves and their families from annihilation.

A native of Sevlusa, in the Carpathia region of Slovakia, Livia Rothkirchen was born on 2 November 1922. She had harsh personal experience of the Holocaust, having survived imprisonment at the Auschwitz extermination camp. After Liberation, she earned a PhD. from the Charles University in Prague, immigrated to Israel, and joined the staff of Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Rothkirchen authored the volumes, The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: Facing the Holocaust, and,. The latter was the first authoritative description of the deportation and murder of the Jews of Slovakia. Rothkirchen is editor of volume 9 of Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance and she authored and co-authored numerous articles. She was awarded the Max Nordau Prize for history.She died in Jerusalem, in 2013 An issue of YadVashem Studies was dedicated to her memory.