Shcharansky: Hero of Our Time

xviii, 467 p., [24] p. of plates: ill.; 24 cm. Illustrations, Bibliography. Maps. Index. From Wikipedia: "The Rt Hon Sir Martin John Gilbert, CBE, PC (born 25 October 1936) is a British historian and honorary Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. He is the author of over eighty books, including works on the Holocaust and Jewish history. Gilbert is a leading historian of the modern world, and is known as the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill. Gilbert was born in London to Peter and Miriam Gilbert. [3] Nine months after the outbreak of the Second World War, he was evacuated to Canada as part of the British efforts to safeguard children. Vivid memories of the transatlantic crossing from Liverpool to Quebec sparked his curiosity about the war in later years. After the war he attended Highgate School, and then completed two years of National Service in the Intelligence Corps before going on to study at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating in 1960 with a first-class BA in modern history. One of his tutors at Oxford was A.J.P. Taylor. After his graduation, Gilbert undertook postgraduate research at St Antony's College, Oxford. In 1963, he married Helen Constance Robinson, with whom he had a daughter. He had two sons with his second wife, Susan Sacher, whom he married in 1974. Since 2005, he has been married to the Holocaust historian Esther Gilbert, née Goldberg. Gilbert describes himself as a proud practising Jew and a Zionist. After two years of postgraduate work, he was approached by Randolph Churchill for help in writing a biography of his father, Sir Winston Churchill. That same year, 1962, he was made a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and he spent the next few years combining his own research projects in Oxford with being part of Randolph's research team in Suffolk, working on the first two volumes of the Churchill biography. When Randolph died in 1968, Gilbert was commissioned to take over the task, completing the final six main volumes of the biography. Gilbert spent twenty years on the six narrative volumes, releasing a number of other books throughout the time. Each main volume of the biography is accompanied by two or three volumes of documents, and so the biography currently runs to 24 volumes (over 25, 000 pages), with another 7 document volumes still planned. In the 1960s, Gilbert compiled some of the first historical atlases. His major works include a definitive single-volume history of The Holocaust, as well as single-volume histories of The First World War and The Second World War. He has also written a notable three-volume series called A History of the Twentieth century. Gilbert describes himself as an "archival historian" who makes extensive use of primary sources in his work. Interviewed by the BBC on the subject of Holocaust research, Gilbert said he believes that the "tireless gathering of facts will ultimately consign Holocaust deniers to history." He wrote the foreword to Denis Avey's 'The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz" which he described as 'a most important book' and stated that Avey's 'description of Buna-Monowitz is stark, and true. ' [6] The accuracy of certain aspects of Avey's account have subsequently been challenged In 1990, Gilbert was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In 1995, he was awarded a Knighthood "for services to British history and international relations". In 1995, he retired as a Fellow of Merton College, but was made an Honorary Fellow. In 1999 he was awarded a Doctorate by Oxford University, "for the totality of his published work". He lives in London. Since 2002, he has been a Distinguished Fellow of Hillsdale College, Michigan, and between 2006 and 2007 he was a professor in the history department at the University of Western Ontario. In October 2008, he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Churchill College. He continues to lecture around the world on Churchill and Jewish history. Gilbert was appointed in June 2009 as a member of th.…