Esther Gitman

Who is Esther Gitman?

Dr. Esther Gitman is Jewish historian who is an expert on the Holocaust in Yugoslavia specifically focusing on Independent State of Croatia.

Gitman was born in Sarajevo in 1941. In October 1941 in her mother's arms they escaped Sarajevo to the Italian zone of occupation on the Adriatic, both survived the Holocaust through the help of non-Jews. She has lived in the United States of America since 1972. Before that her family lived in Israel for 19 years, then she moved to Montreal, Canada where her husband earned his Ph.D and finally in 1978 they moved to NYC.

Gitman received a bachelor's degree in history and sociology from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and a graduate degree in criminal justice from Long Island University. She earned a Ph.D. from City University in New York in Jewish history.

She began her research into the Croatian-Jewish history in 1999 with her dissertation Rescue of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945. In 2002 she received a Fulbright scholarship to travel to Croatia to continue her research. In 2008, Gitman participated in a conference on Aloysius Stepinac, the senior member of the Catholic Church among the Croats in the Second World War.