Professor David Kranzler was a researcher and historian specializing in those who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. He was born in Germany on May 19, 1930. To avoid imminent danger from the Nazis, his family fled to the United States in 1937. He lived in New York since his childhood, and died on November 7, 2007.
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He studied for BA (1953) and MA (1958) at Brooklyn College, for M.L.S. degree (1957) at Columbia University, and for his doctorate (1971) at Yeshiva University.[1]
He was a leading historian on the subject of rescue by Jews during the Holocaust, a field which his works founded. He was among the first to document the rescue activities of Orthodox Jewish organizations, such as the Vaad Ha-hatzala and Agudath Israel. Historian Alex Grobman referred to Kranzler as "the pioneer of research on Orthodox Jewry during the war."[2] He also researched and created awareness for the mid-1944 Swiss grass roots protests triggered by George Mantello publicizing Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl's translation of one of the Holocaust's most important documents: the Auschwitz Report. Dr. Kranzler was convinced that these actions led to stopping of the transports from Hungary in mid-1944 and enabled the Raoul Wallenberg mission and other important rescue initiatives in Budapest. He joined the faculty of Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1969, and was a Professor there until his retirement.
Dr. Kranzler was a contributor to the Goldberg Commission Report on the Role of American Jews During the Holocaust, and submitted two chapters, one on the Orthodox, called "Orthodox Ends, UnOrthodox Means" and another on the Jewish Labor Committee.
Dr. Kranzler served as Scholar-in-Residence in numerous congregations, on college campuses, and centers, including the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue (Rabbi Marc Angel) in Manhattan, and Kodima Synagogue, Springfield, Mass. (Rabbi Alex Weisfogel), Ohio State University Holocaust Center (Prof. Saul Friedman) and was given a fellowship at Yad Vashem.
Dr. Kranzler researched the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust for about 35 years. He published ten books and many articles on the subject, and lectured on the subject in America, Israel, Europe and the Far East. He interviewed over a thousand people, including some of the major Jewish rescuers such as Hillel Kook also known as Peter Bergson, George Mantello, Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld and close family and associates of rescuers no longer alive, including Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl and Recha Sternbuch.
He established one of the largest and unique research archives on the subject of rescue, including large number of audio interviews with some of the major Holocaust rescuers.
NOTES: Some of the above are co-authored. Additional books not on the subject of rescue are not shown.