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Communique issued by the presidency of the Republic following the death of Mr Raul Hilberg reaction of M. Nicolas SARKOZY, President of the Republic

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Paris, 7 August 2007

Having learned this instant of the death of Raul Hilberg, I want to pay tribute to the memory of this very great historian.

A professor of international relations, he taught at the University of Vermont. His opus, "The Destruction of the Jews of Europe", published in 1961, gradually made him known to the entire world. This book, along with the film of Claude Lanzmann, "Shoah", is fundamental for understanding the terrible reality of the Holocaust, its chilling machinery and implacable horror. Raul Hilberg's scientific rigour is evident to all, particularly at a time when anti-Semitic revisionists are raising their heads.

We have lost today a pre-eminent historian as well as a man committed to seeing that it does not happen again: did he not over the years add chapters to his book on the extermination of Gypsies by the Nazis and of Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda?

Thanks to Raul Hilberg, memory will never again be found wanting. For this he has our gratitude./.

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