Otto Dov Kulka

Otto Dov Kulka (Ôttô Dov Qûlqā; 16 January 1933 in Nový Hrozenkov, Czechoslovakia – 29 January 2021 in Jerusalem) was an Israeli historian, professor emeritus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Otto Dov Kulka was born as Otto Deutelbaum in 1933, in Nový Hrozenkov, Czechoslovakia, to Erich Schön and Elly Deutelbaumová (née Kulková).

Elly was at the time married to Rudolf Deutelbaum, Erich's uncle, who had taken Erich as his trainee.

In 1938, Rudolf and Elly divorced, and Erich sued to be recognized as Otto's legitimate father.

Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, in 1939, Erich Schön was arrested by the Gestapo and in 1942 transported from a concentration camp in Germany to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

Rudolf Deutelbaum, along with his second wife Ilona and daughter Eva Deutelbaumová (Otto's half-sister), were deported in September 1942 to Theresienstadt Ghetto.

In October 1942 they were deported to Treblinka extermination camp where they were murdered.

Otto Kulka and his mother were deported in September 1942 to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, and from there, in September 1943, to the Theresienstadt family camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

His mother died in the Stutthof concentration camp in January 1945.

After the war, he and his father returned to Czechoslovakia.

To commemorate Erich's wife and Otto's mother they changed their family name to Kulka on the 23 April 1946.

Kulka immigrated to Israel in March 1949 and joined the Kibbutz Kfar Hamaccabi.

He added a Hebrew name – Dov – to his original name.

Since 1958 he has lived in Jerusalem.

He was married to Chaia Kulka and was the father of a daughter, Eliora Kulka-Soroka.

Kulka began his academic studies in 1958, at the Hebrew University, and in 1966 joined the faculty of its Department of the History of the Jewish People.

The subject of his doctoral thesis (1975) was "The 'Jewish Question' in the Third Reich. Its Significance in National Socialist Ideology and Politics and its Role in Determining the Status and Activities of the Jews".

In 1984-1985 he was a Visiting Professor at Harvard University.

In 1985, he was appointed an associate professor, and in 1991 a full professor in the Hebrew University's Department of the History of the Jewish People.

Since 1988 he has held the Sol Rosenbloom Chair in Jewish History.

For his book Deutsches Judentum unter dem Nationalsozialismus (German Jewry under the National-Socialist Regime 1997):

For his book Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death (Landschaften der Metropole des Todes):

From the outset of his academic activity, Kulka developed a conceptual and methodological approach to the study of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust which departed from the prevailing one-dimensional focus on the persecution and annihilation of the Jews.

He maintained that the study of the history of the Jews under Nazism should follow the same scholarly principles that are applied to every historical period.

Within this framework, he discerned three major topics of research: (1) Nazi ideology and policy on the Jews; (2) the attitude of the German population toward the regime's policy on the Jews and toward the Jews themselves; and (3) the Jewish society and its leadership.

This comprehensive picture was then examined in the light of historical continuity and change.

Only from this perspective, Kulka argued, could the question of the Nazi period's singularity and the "Final Solution" be properly addressed.

In line with this conception, Kulka made an effort to avoid using the terms "Shoah" or "Holocaust", neither of which, in his opinion, accurately encapsulates this period within the continuity of Jewish history and does not convey its singularity.

Instead, he refers to "the history of the Jews under the National-Socialist regime," and, more frequently, to the "Final Solution."

The first phrase derives from his methodological approach, holding that this period should be studied like any other and in the context of its historical continuity, in the three dimensions mentioned above.

As for the term "Final Solution," Kulka considers it the most precise and most telling articulation of the teleological meaning of Nazi ideology and of the purpose underlying the realization of its goal: the termination of the historical existence of the Jewish people and the extermination of each individual Jew, as well as the eradication of the "Jewish spirit" ("jüdischer Geist") manifested in the European cultural heritage.

It is here, that Kulka identifies the singularity of this period in Jewish and human history.

He retired as professor emeritus in 1999 but kept up his research activity and continued to publish scholarly and other works.

The aesthetician Tomáš Kulka is his brother.

Kulka studied philosophy and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Goethe University Frankfurt.

He retired from teaching in 1999 after being diagnosed with cancer.

He continued to conduct his research within the framework of the Hebrew University's Institute of Jewish Studies; his research projects on German Jewry under the Nazi regime were supported by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF).

Kulka was for many years a member of the board of directors of Yad Vashem and the board of the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German and Central European Jewry.

He was a member of the editorial board of the bilingual (Hebrew and English) journal "Yad Vashem Studies".

His primary areas of specialization were the study of modern antisemitism from the early modern age until its manifestation under the National-Socialist regime as the "Final Solution"; Jewish thought in Europe – and Jews in European thought – from the 16th to the 20th century; Jewish-Christian relations in modern Europe; the history of the Jews in Germany; and the study of the Holocaust.