Omer Bartov (
Hebrew: עֹמֶר בַּרְטוֹב[ʔoˈmeʁˈbaʁtov]; born 1954) is an Israeli-born historian. He is the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at
Brown University, where he has taught since 2000.[1] Bartov is a
historian of the Holocaust and is considered one of the world's leading authorities on
genocide.[2][3]The Forward calls him "one of the foremost scholars of Jewish life in
Galicia."[4]
The son of Israel Prize-winning author
Hanoch Bartov,[5] Bartov was born in Israel and educated at
Tel Aviv University and
St. Antony's College, Oxford. As a historian, he is most noted for his studies of the German Army in World War II. Bartov has challenged the popular view that the German Army was an apolitical force that had little involvement in war crimes or
crimes against humanity in World War II, arguing that the
Wehrmacht was a deeply Nazi institution that played a key role in the Holocaust in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union. He has also characterized Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the
occupied territories as
apartheid.
Early life and education
Omer Bartov was born in 1954 in
Ein HaHoresh, Israel. His father,
Hanoch Bartov, was an author and journalist whose parents immigrated to
Mandatory Palestine from Poland before Hanoch was born.[6] Bartov's mother immigrated to Mandatory Palestine from
Buchach, Ukraine, in the mid-1930s.[7]
From 1992 to 2000, Bartov taught at
Rutgers University, where he held the Raoul Wallenberg Professorship in Human Rights. At Rutgers, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. Bartov joined the faculty of Brown University in 2000.[8] He was elected a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.[9]
Political views
In August 2023, Bartov was one of more than 1,500 U.S., Israeli, Jewish and Palestinian academics and public figures who signed an open letter stating that Israel operates "
a regime of apartheid" and calling on U.S. Jewish groups to speak out against the occupation in Palestine.[10][11] He said that
Israel's 37th government had brought "a very radical shift", adding, "I am a historian of the 20th century and don’t make analogies lightly", before recounting how the movement of fringe politics into the mainstream in Europe led to fascism, and emphasizing: "This is the current moment in Israel. It's terrifying to see it happening."[12]
Books
The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001
Historians on the Eastern Front Andreas Hillgruber and Germany's Tragedy, pages 325–345 from Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte, Volume 16, 1987
Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich, Oxford Paperbacks, 1992
Hitlers Wehrmacht. Soldaten, Fanatismus und die Brutalisierung des Krieges. (German edition)
ISBN3-499-60793-X.
Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, Oxford University Press, 1996[13]
Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity, Oxford University Press, 2002
Germany's War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories, Cornell University Press, 2003
The "Jew" in Cinema: From The Golem to Don't Touch My Holocaust, Indiana University Press, 2005