POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews ( pl, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich) is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word ''Polin'' in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a ...
. Retrieved April 1, 2015. was a chief archivist of the Yiddish Scientific Institute
YIVO
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, and the leading historian on
the Holocaust
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; ...
.Jewish Telegraphic Agency (April 2, 1981) Isaiah Trunk Dead at 75 New York, Obituaries. Retrieved April 1, 2015. Trunk was an expert on
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenisti ...
during the Nazi
occupation of Poland
Occupation commonly refers to:
* Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, t ...
. A scholar and author originally from Poland, he was the winner of a
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
in history and a
National Jewish Book Award
The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.monograph titled ''Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation'' published in New York by Macmillan in 1972.
Life
Born in
Kutno
Kutno is a city located in central Poland with 42,704 inhabitants (2021) and an area of . Situated in the Łódź Voivodeship since 1999, previously it was part of Płock Voivodeship (1975–1998) and it is now the capital of Kutno County.
Dur ...
under the foreign partitions of Poland, Trunk graduated from the Hebraic Humanistic Gymnasium in
Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Four years later he received a
Master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.
in history from the
Warsaw University
The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...
. After his graduation, Trunk taught history in various city schools and was associated with the work of historians from YIVO in Warsaw.
During the
Nazi German
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
. He returned to his homeland after the war. In 1950, during the darkest years of Stalinism in Poland, Trunk emigrated first to
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
where he lived for three years and then moved to
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
where he obtained the position of director at the Peretz School in Calgary. He moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
a year later to work at
YIVO
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
, where he became a chief archivist in 1971. He died in New York at the age of 75.
Trunk was the author of numerous articles and studies on the Holocaust in English and Yiddish, including his nominal ''Jewish Response to Nazi Persecution'' published in 1979.
* ''Łódź Ghetto : a history'', United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Indiana University Press 2006)
* ''Jewish responses to Nazi persecution : collective and individual behavior »in extremis«'', Stein and Day 1979, New York
* ''Judenrat; the Jewish councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi occupation'', Macmillan 1972 Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation ' (Google Books, preview) U of Nebraska Press, 1972. , 663 pages. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
* ''Religious, educational and cultural problems in the Eastern European ghettos under German occupation'', Yivo Annual 1969
* ''The Holocaust'', Yivo Institute for Jewish Research
* ''Unit on armed resistance'', American Association for Jewish Education, New York