Léon Poliakov

Born in St. Petersburg, Léon Poliakov was a foundational scholar in the study of the Holocaust and among the earliest historians to examine the position of the Vatican during World War II. Poliakov spent time in Italy and Germany before settling in France. At the beginning of the war he joined the French army and, after his escape from a German prisoner-of-war camp, the French Resistance. In 1943, he helped organize the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation. Poliakov also assisted French counsel Edgar Faure at the Nuremberg trials.