 raul hilberg (june 2, 1926 â august 4, 2007) was an austrian-born american political scientist and historian. he was widely considered to be the world's preeminent scholar of the holocaust, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, the destruction of the european jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the nazi final solution. == biography == hilberg was born to a polish-romanian jewish family in vienna, austria. hilberg was very much a loner, pursuing solitary hobbies such as geography, music and train spotting.nathaniel popper, 'a conscious pariah: on raul hilberg,' in the nation april 19, 2010 though his parents attended synagogue on occasion, he personally found the irrationality of religion repellent. he did however attend a zionist school in vienna, which inculcated the necessity of defending against, rather than surrendering to, the rising menace of nazism. following the march 1938 anschluss, the family were evicted at gunpoint from their home and his father was arrested by the nazis, but was released because of his service record as a combatant in world war i. one year later, on april 1, 1939, at age 13, hilberg fled austria with his family; after reaching france, they embarked on a ship bound for cuba. following a four-month stay in cuba, his family arrived in the united states on september 1, 1939, the day the [[world war ii|
1926_births 2007_deaths American_atheists American_historians American_memoirists American_military_personnel_of_World_War_II American_people_of_Austrian-Jewish_descent American_political_scientists Austrian_Jews Austrian_emigrants_to_the_United_States Austrian_refugees Brooklyn_College_alumni Cancer_deaths_in_Vermont Columbia_University_alumni Commanders_Crosses_of_the_Order_of_Merit_of_the_Federal_Republic_of_Germany Deaths_from_lung_cancer Fellows_of_the_American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences Historians_of_the_Holocaust Holocaust_historiography Jewish_atheists Jewish_historians Jewish_refugees Judaic_studies_in_academia People_from_Brooklyn People_from_Vienna People_who_emigrated_to_escape_Nazism University_of_Vermont_faculty