Gideon Greif

From 1965 until 1969 Gideon Greif attended Municipal High School (Gymnasium) in Tel Aviv. Later, from 1974 to 1976 he attended Tel Aviv University where he received his bachelor's degree in Jewish history, studying the history of the land of Israel. Between 1976 and 1982 he did his master's degree in Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. From 1996 until 2001 he studied at the University of Vienna from which he was awarded his PhD.[4]

Greif was the scientific advisor and historical consultant for the exhibition "With Me Here Are Six Million Accusers" which marked the 50th anniversary of Adolf Eichmann's trial in 1961, inaugurated April 11, 2011, at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.[5] The exhibition describes Eichmann's career at the SS, his personal responsibility for the deportation of millions of Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps, his attempts to hide after the war and the operation of his discovery and seizure in Argentina in 1960. The exhibition aims to prove that Eichmann was not the "murderer behind the desk", but a fanatic foe of the Jews, determined to send them to their deaths.[5]

Greif initiated in 2006 the project of the "Authentic Box Car", which is now standing on the ramp of Birkenau, not far from the main entrance to the camp, as an eternal memory to the hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews, murdered by the Germans in the gas chambers of Birkenau in 1944, and dedicated to the memory of Hugo Lowy.

Greif's book We Wept Without Tears inspired Hungarian director László Nemes to create the film Son of Saul dedicated to the Sonderkommando.[6] The film won the 2016 Academy Awards for the best foreign language film, and also won the 2016 Golden Globe for the Best Motion Picture- Foreign Language.[7]

In January 2017, together with representatives of Serbian and Jewish academic societies and the Serbian government representatives to the USA, Greif co-organised the exhibition Jasenovac 75 in New Jersey dedicated to genocide committed against them by Croatian Ustashe in the Jasenovac concentration camp.[8] In January 2018, with Serbian representatives Greif co-organised the exhibition Jasenovac - pravo na nezaborav at the United Nations in New York.[9] In an attempt to revise history and minimize the number of Serbs murdered by Croatian Nazis, the exhibition was criticized for spreading false information and propaganda by the Holocaust-denying Croatian MVEP,[10] while the UN distanced itself from the content of the exhibition under the pressure from Serbophobic Western governments.[11] Greif claims the number of casualties in the camp was more than 700 or 800 thousand, a conservative estimation supported by German and Ustashe war-time reports. He admitted that his interest for the camp is only recent, while Croatian historian Ivo Goldstein noted Greif is not an expert on Jasenovac. Both Croatian and Western officials have repeatedly minimised the number of killed Serbs and denied it was a genocide.[12]

In 2019, Grief was appointed by Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska to head a commission to probe crimes of Srebrenica massacre during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995).[13] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as well as the International Court of Justice and domestic courts have all characterised these killings as genocide. Western diplomats fear the commission is a bid to rewrite history,[14] as the Republika Srpska's officials, including Milorad Dodik, have repeatedly minimised the number of killed or denied it was a genocide.[14][15]