Edwin Black

This article is about the American journalist. For information about the rhetorician by the same name, see Edwin Black (rhetorician).

Edwin Black is an American syndicated columnist, and journalist specializing in the historical interplay between economics and politics in the Middle East, petroleum policy, the abuses practiced by corporations, and the financial underpinnings of Nazi Germany, among other topics. Black's eight works of non-fiction have been translated into an array of non-English languages, including French, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, German, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, and Hebrew.[1]

Contents

Biography

Early years

Black is the son of ethnic Jews from Poland who were survivors of the campaign of genocide against the Jewish people by the fascist government of Germany and its allies. His mother Edjya, from Białystok, had only managed to survive the Holocaust when as a 12-year old in August 1943 she was pushed to safety by her mother and other prisoners through the vent of a boxcar en route to the Treblinka extermination camp.[2][3] His father as a young man had escaped his murder by successfully fleeing to the woods from a long march to an isolated "shooting pit" and had subsequently fought the fascists as a Betar partisan.[4] The pair had survived World War II by hiding in the forests of Poland for two years, emerging only after the end of the conflict and emigrating to the United States.[2]

Of his own origins, Black has written: "I was born in Chicago, raised in Jewish neighborhoods, and my parents never tried to speak of their experience again."[2]

Following in the beliefs of his parents, Black was from his earliest days an adherent of the Jewish national state of Israel.[2] As a young man he spent time on a kibbutz, visited Israel on several other occasions, and gave earnest consideration to permanent residency there.[2]

Career

Black began working as a professional journalist while still in high school, later attending university where he further developed the craft. In the late 1970s he was a founder of the investigative magazine, The Chicago Monthly.[5] He also was a frequent freelance contributor to the four major Chicago newspapers of the day, the Tribune, the Daily News, the Sun-Times, and Chicago Today, as well as such weeklies as Chicago Reader and Chicago Magazine.[6]

In 1978 Black interviewed the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented members of the American Nazi Party who, intending provocation, marched through the predominantly Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie.[7] In preparing himself for that interview, Black's interest was piqued in the hidden history of relations between the government of Adolf Hitler and German-Jewish Zionists during the first years of the Nazi regime. Five years of research followed, ending in the 1984 publication of his controversial first book, The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine.[8]

Black's books have typically made use of networks of volunteer and professional researchers assembled for each project. Three years before completion of his 2001 book, IBM and the Holocaust, Black began to put together what would ultimately become a team more than 100 researchers, translators, and assistants to work on discovery and analysis of primary source documents written in German, French, and Polish.[9] In all, more than 20,000 documents from some 50 different libraries, archives, museums, and other collections were assembled and analyzed in the writing of the book.[10]

Black has written on topics beyond that of 1933-1945 German history, including books on the issue of oil dependence, the history of Iraq, and alternative energy. He is presently a contributor to the online magazine, The Cutting Edge.[11]

Black has also occasionally written on the subject of film and television music, contributing opinion pieces and composer interviews to various print and online publications.[12]

Black lives today in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Selected literary awards

Works

Books

Anthology contributions

Selected articles

Selected contributions to video documentaries

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Edwin Black" author search, WorldCat, Online Computer Library Center. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d e Edwin Black, "Introduction to the 1984 Edition," The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine. Washington, DC: Dialog Press, 2009; pg. xxii.
  3. ^ Edwin Black, "The Ghosts in the Machine," Forward, March 29, 2002. Retrieved May 9, 2010.
  4. ^ Black, "Introduction to the 1984 Edition," The Transfer Agreement, pp. xxii-xxiii.
  5. ^ The Transfer Agreement one-sheet, Israel Visit.co.il. Retrieved May 9, 2010.
  6. ^ "Edwin Black" biography, Feature Group.com Retrieved May 9, 2010.
  7. ^ Edwin Black, "Introduction to the 1984 Edition," The Transfer Agreement, pg. xxi.
  8. ^ Edwin Black interview with Stuart Weinblatt, The Transfer Agreement. (video) Rockville, Maryland, October 30, 2009. C-SPAN Book TV.
  9. ^ Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation. Washington, DC: Dialog Press, 2001; pg. 12.
  10. ^ Black, IBM and the Holocaust, pg. 13.
  11. ^ "About Us", The Cutting Edge, www.thecuttingegenews.com/ Retrieved April 7, 2012.
  12. ^ Jerry Goldsmith talks to Edwin Black
  13. ^ Martin Barillas, "Author Holds Historic Event on The Transfer Agreement," The Cutting Edge.com, October 12, 2009. Retrieved May 9, 2010.
  14. ^ a b "ASJA Presents 2003 Writing Awards," American Society of Journalists and Authors, ASJA.org. Retrieved May 9, 2010.
  15. ^ a b http://www.asja.org/awards/awarhist.php
  16. ^ "Awards," Edwin Black.com. Retrieved May 9, 2010.
  17. ^ "2007 Awards," American Society of Journalists and Authors, ASJA.org. Retrieved May 9, 2010.

External links