José Gotovitch

José Gotovitch (12 April 1940 – 17 February 2024) was a Belgian historian who specialised on the political and social history of Belgium during World War II as well as the history of Communism. He is best-known for the bestselling book L'An 40, which was co-written with Jules Gérard-Libois and is considered a landmark study in Belgian historiography.

Background Gotovitch was born into a Jewish family in the working-class Marolles area of Brussels on 12 April 1940 only weeks before Belgium was invaded and occupied in World War II. His parents ran a small stockings and socks shop on the rue des Tanneurs.

Amid the Holocaust in Belgium, he narrowly escaped from a large-scale round-up of Jews in the Marolles on 3 September 1942. 718 people were arrested and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. ) under the supervision of Guillaume Jacquemyns, one of the few historians at the university who was not a Medievalist. Gotovitch did not finalise his doctorate (Le Parti Communiste de Belgique, 1939-1944 : stratégie nationale et pratique locale : la Fédération bruxelloise) until 1988.

The book emphasised continuity, claiming that "nothing becomes comprehensible starting from 10 May 1940", the day of the German invasion. The writers emphasised pre-war debates on neutrality after 1936 and the prevalence of authoritarian political ideas on different parts of Belgian society, especially traditional elites.

In a retrospective on the book in 2005, historian Chantal Kesterloot has written that "L'An 40 constituted a formidable source of inspiration for later works, for a generation of researchers which, in its strides, has been interested in the history of this period which remains, more than 60 years after the facts, one of the most stimulating."

The work attracted widespread interest in Belgium. The first edition of 3,000 copies was sold out within three days. It ultimately sold 25,000 copies making it "the uncontested bestseller in Belgian history-writing". Kesterloot emphasises the importance of Gotovitch and Gérard-Libois's work in the growing respectability of the entire field of contemporary history in Belgium during the 1960s and 1970s alongside other writers such as Albert De Jonghe and Luc Schepens. Gotovitch's critical account of the response of Belgian communists to the invasion led to his marginalisation by the party for several years.

Later works Gotovitch's scholarship remained largely focused on World War II. He wrote on collaboration, the Exodus, the Holocaust, and the resistance.

After several years outside academia, Gotovitch was recruited as a researcher at the Centre for Research and Historical Study of the Second World War (Centre de recherches et d'études historiques de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, CREHSGM; Navorsings- en Studiecentrum van de Geschiedenis van de Tweede Wereldoorlog, NSGWO) in 1967 which became the Study and Documentation Centre for War and Contemporary Society (Centre d'Études et de Documentation Guerre et Sociétés contemporaines; Studie- en Documentatiecentrum Oorlog en Hedendaagse Maatschappij, both CEGESOMA) in 1997. Gotovitch was its director from 1988 until his retirement in 2005. In this role, he played an important role in building CEGESOMA's large archival collections on the Second World War. Gotovitch was a prominent public historian in Belgium and worked on television and radio history series including the landmark radio series Jours de Guerre broadcast from 1990 to 1995.

After retiring in 2005, Gotovitch died on 17 February 2024, at the age of 83.