[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 86 (Friday, May 23, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1089]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO PROFESSOR SAUL FRIEDLANDER

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 22, 2008

  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to congratulate UCLA 
history professor Saul Friedlander, who was recently awarded the 
Pulitzer Prize in General Non-Fiction for his work, The Years of 
Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.
  Professor Friedlander was born to German-speaking Jewish parents in 
Prague in 1932 and raised in France during the Nazi occupation. Not 
until 1946 did he discover that his parents perished at Auschwitz. 
After immigrating to Israel at the time of its birth as a nation, he 
was able to pursue his passion for knowledge. After studying in Israel 
and Paris, he received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of 
International Studies in Geneva.
  In 1983, Saul Friedlander served as a visiting professor at my alma 
mater, the University of California, Los Angeles. Four years later he 
was invited to join the faculty full time, receiving the 1939 Club 
Chair in Holocaust Studies. He later founded the influential journal, 
History and Memory and has established himself as one of the world's 
premier Holocaust historians.
  Professor Friedlander has authored multiple titles on the Holocaust, 
including Nazi Germany and the Jews, The Years of Persecution: 1933-
1939, which is considered to be the definitive work on the period. It 
led to a MacArthur Foundation Award, which he used to research and 
write his Pulitzer-winning volume. That work vividly depicts Jewish 
life throughout all of Europe and provides a modern understanding of 
the enactment of anti-Semitic policies in the World War II era.
  Professor Friedlander's work is not limited to the academic, however; 
he has also served on commissions working to shed light on the 
Holocaust-era activities of corporations and governments.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the ongoing work of 
Saul Friedlander and his dedication to educating students and the 
global community, researching the Holocaust, and putting the 
indescribable into words.

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