Jean Ancel (1940–2008)

Jean Ancel was born to a Jewish family in Iaşi, Romania. He was only a year old when pro-Nazi governmental forces unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in World War II, resulting in the murder of thousands, including many members of his family. His father was deported on a death train in the aftermath, but survived.

Ancel began his studies of history at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași, but was expelled before graduating because he had requested to emigrate to Israel. In 1959, he succeeding in leaving for Israel, and continued his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he earned a BA in History and Romance languages in 1967. He also obtained a degree in archiving, before completing a doctoral degree in history. He worked extensively with archival materials from Romania, Russia, Moldova (after the fall of the Soviet Union), the USA, Israel and Germany. His specialty and lifelong devotion became the study and documentation of Romanian Jewish history, in particular of the pre-war period and World War II.

He became the principal archivist and investigator at Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research. He was the author of numerous books, including Transnistria, 1941-1942: The Romanian Mass Murder Campaigns (2003); Prelude to Mass Murder: The Pogrom in Iaşi, June 29, 1941 (2003); and The History of the Holocaust in Romania (2002). He also edited Documents Concerning the Fate of Romanian Jewry (1986), 12 volumes of original documents amassed from across Europe and Israel. He also edited Wilhem Filderman's Memoirs and Diaries (2004), as well as other volumes of papers and studies on the Romanian government's radical anti-Semitic legislation and policy. His last book was The Economic Destruction of Romanian Jewry (2007). He was a member of a committee of historians headed by Elie Wiesel known as the Wiesel Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. He also worked for Israeli radio as an anchor.