Josef Wulf

Born in Chemnitz, Germany, and trained as a rabbi, Josef Wulf survived the Holocaust—in the Kraków ghetto and in Auschwitz—and subsequently became a historian. After the war, Wulf remained in Europe, leading the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland from 1945 to 1947. Eventually he moved to Berlin, where he wrote extensively on the Third Reich. Although he won recognition for his research, he struggled to find a stable academic position in Germany. In 1974, faced with the ongoing power and presence of former Nazis in the German public sphere, and depressed by the death of his wife, he committed suicide.