Isaiah Trunk

Isaiah Trunk (; 1905–1981) was a chief archivist of the Yiddish Scientific Institute YIVO in New York from Warsaw, and the leading historian on the Holocaust. Trunk was an expert on Jewish history during the Nazi occupation of Poland. A scholar and author originally from Poland, he was the winner of a National Book Award in history and a National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category for his monograph titled Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation published in New York by Macmillan in 1972.

Life Born in Kutno in Congress Poland, Trunk graduated from the Hebraic Humanistic Gymnasium in Łódź in 1923, soon after the rebirth of Poland following World War I. Four years later he received a Master's degree in history from the Warsaw University. After his graduation, Trunk taught history in various city schools and was associated with the work of historians from YIVO in Warsaw. quote|In an understated, matter-of-fact way Trunk documents the prevalent favoritism and corruption of many Council members -- he always reminds us that no blanket generalizations hold -- and shows how Council taxes, which in large part went to pay salaries, fell most heavily on the poorest ghetto inhabitants. Along with the well-known brutality and self-aggrandizement of ghetto police, the horrifying caricature of a competitive society within the whole ghetto is described. Religious, educational and cultural problems in the Eastern European ghettos under German occupation, Yivo Annual 1969 The Holocaust, Yivo Institute for Jewish Research Unit on armed resistance, American Association for Jewish Education, New York

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