Otto Dov Kulka: Holocaust Historian and Jewish Studies Scholar

Otto Dov Kulka (16 January 1933 – 29 January 2021) was an Israeli historian and professor emeritus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He specialized in the history of modern antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish-Christian relations in Europe, and was recognized internationally for his scholarly work on German Jewry under the Nazi regime.

Early Life and Education

Kulka was born Otto Deutelbaum on 16 January 1933 in Nový Hrozenkov, Czechoslovakia, to Erich Schön and Elly Deutelbaumová. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, his father Erich Schön was arrested by the Gestapo and transported in 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In September 1942, Kulka and his mother were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, and from there in September 1943 to the Theresienstadt family camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. His mother died in the Stutthof concentration camp in January 1945. After the war, he and his father returned to Czechoslovakia and changed their family name to Kulka on 23 April 1946.

Kulka immigrated to Israel in March 1949 and joined Kibbutz Kfar Hamaccabi, adopting the Hebrew name Dov. He began his academic studies in 1958 at the Hebrew University, studying philosophy and history there and later at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Career and Achievements

Kulka joined the faculty of the Hebrew University’s Department of the History of the Jewish People in 1966. He was appointed associate professor in 1985 and full professor in 1991. From 1984 to 1985, he served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard University. Since 1988, he held the Sol Rosenbloom Chair in Jewish History at the Hebrew University. He retired from teaching in 1999 after being diagnosed with cancer but continued his research within the Institute of Jewish Studies, supported by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development.

Kulka was a longtime member of the board of directors of Yad Vashem and the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German and Central European Jewry. He served on the editorial board of the bilingual journal Yad Vashem Studies.

Notable Events and Milestones

Kulka completed his doctoral thesis in 1975 on “The ‘Jewish Question’ in the Third Reich,” examining its significance in National Socialist ideology and its role in determining the status and activities of Jews. His methodological approach to Holocaust studies departed from prevailing one-dimensional frameworks by examining Nazi ideology and policy on the Jews alongside the attitudes of the German population and the conditions of Jewish society itself. He argued that this comprehensive historical perspective was essential to properly address questions of the Nazi period’s singularity and the “Final Solution.”

Throughout his career, Kulka advocated for precise terminology in Holocaust scholarship, preferring the term “Final Solution” and the phrase “history of the Jews under the National-Socialist regime” over terms he considered less historically precise.

Awards and Honors

For his book Deutsches Judentum unter dem Nationalsozialismus (German Jewry under the National-Socialist Regime), published in 1997, Kulka received the Buchman Memorial Prize from Yad Vashem in 1998 and the Wiznitzer Prize for best book published in Jewish studies in 1998 from the Hebrew University’s Institute of Jewish Studies. His book Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death earned the Geschwister Scholl Prize in 2013, awarded by the Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels, the city of Munich, and LMU Munich, as well as the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize for 2014 in London.

Additional Resources

Kulka’s extensive scholarly output and contributions to Holocaust and Jewish history studies remain accessible through the Hebrew University of Jerusalem archives, Yad Vashem, and the Leo Baeck Institute. His published works and research continue to inform contemporary scholarship on antisemitism, Nazi ideology, and the Holocaust. Readers seeking deeper engagement with his life and work can consult biographical entries and academic databases dedicated to Holocaust studies and Jewish history.

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