Sybil Halpern Milton (October 6, 1941 – October 16, 2000) was an American historian. She specialized in the study of the Holocaust. She was the senior resident historian at the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...
from 1989 to 1997. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/643785EF72E941483F39E53440C8F63B/S0008938900005203a.pdf/sybil-halpern-milton-1941-2000.pdf
Early life and education
Milton was born in New York City in 1941. Her parents were Austrian Jewish refugees who fled Austria after the Nazi takeover.
She graduated from the High School of Music and Art. In 1962, she received a BA from
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Col ...
, a MA in 1963, and a doctorate from Stanford University in modern German history in 1971.
Career
Milton taught German history at Stanford University and other institutions. From 1974 to 1984, she was the director of archives at the
Leo Baeck Institute
The Leo Baeck Institute, established in 1955, is an international research institute with centres in New York City, London, and Jerusalem that are devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. Baeck was its first intern ...
in New York. She then became a consultant to the
Holocaust Memorial Council
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe ...
.
Milton was vice president of the Independent Commission of Experts, which examined Swiss policies toward the Nazis and Jews during the Holocaust. Milton herself studied the relationship between Swiss banks and Jewish assets held by the Nazis such as artworks and precious metals.
According to
Menachem Z. Rosensaft
Menachem Z. Rosensaft (born 1948) an attorney in New York and the founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, is a leader of the Second Generation movement of children of Holocaust survivors. He has ...
, of the executive committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, she was “a pioneer in studying the memorials and archives of the Nazi death camps throughout Europe.”
Personal life
Milton was married to historian
Henry Friedlander
Henry Egon Friedlander (24 September 1930 – 17 October 2012) was a German-American Jewish historian of the Holocaust who was noted for his arguments in favor of broadening the scope of casualties of the Holocaust.
Born in Berlin, Germany, to a ...
.
She died of
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and tiredness. ...
at the age of 59 on October 16, 2000 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
Awards and honors
Milton's 1981 book Art of the Holocaust won the
National Jewish Book Award
The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.
The
German Studies Association
The German Studies Association (GSA) is an international organization of scholars in history, literature, economics, cultural studies, and political science who study Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The organization began in 1976 as the West ...
created the Sybil Halpern Milton Memorial Book Prize after Milton’s death. The prize of $1,000 is awarded in odd numbered years to the author of the best book on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in any academic field.
Books
* with Janet Blatter: ''Art of the Holocaust'' (Book Club Associates, 1982)
* ''The Art of Jewish children, Germany, 1936–1941: innocence and persecution'' (Philosophical Library, 1989)