Isaiah Trunk ( pl, Izajasz Trunk; 1905–1981)Izajasz Trunk
''Ludzie - Wirtualny Sztetl''. POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Retrieved April 1, 2015. was a chief archivist of the Yiddish Scientific Institute YIVO in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

from Warsaw, and the leading historian on the Holocaust.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 during the Nazi occupation of Poland. A scholar and author originally from Poland, he was the winner of a National Book Award in history and a National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category for his

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

titled ''Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation'' published in New York by Macmillan in 1972.

Life

Born in Kutno under the foreign

partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

, Trunk graduated from the Hebraic Humanistic Gymnasium in Łódź in 1923 soon after the rebirth of Poland, following World War I. Four years later he received a Master's degree in history from the Warsaw University. 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

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 af ...

in 1939, Trunk fled to

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...

in the Soviet occupied eastern Poland and than further east following the Soviet withdrawal during Operation Barbarossa. He returned to his homeland after the war. In 1950, during the darkest years of

Stalinism in Poland Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

, Trunk emigrated first to Israel where he lived for three years and then moved to

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where he obtained the position of director at the Peretz School in

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. He moved to

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a year later to work at YIVO, 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.

''Judenrat''

Trunk's ground-breaking research into the wartime activities of the Jewish Ghetto Councils was described as follows in the

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Selected books

* ''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

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trunk, Isaiah Jewish historians 1905 births 1981 deaths