Born into a
Russian Jewish family, Poliakov lived in Italy and Germany until he settled in France. He cofounded the
Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation, established to collate documentation on the persecution of Jews during
World War II. He also assisted
Edgar Faure at the
Nuremberg Trial. Poliakov was director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research (
Centre national de la recherche scientifique) from 1954 to 1971. Poliakov assessed the disposition of
Pope Pius XII critically on various issues connected to the Holocaust in "The Vatican and the 'Jewish Question' - The Record of the Hitler Period - And After", published in November 1950 in the Jewish journal
Commentary. Although little noted at the time, Poliakov's 1951
Bréviaire de la haine ("Harvest of Hate") was the first major work on the
genocide, predating
Raul Hilberg's
Destruction of the European Jews by a decade. It received some good reviews. Poliakov said in his memoirs that he refrained from even using the word "genocide", which was considered unfit for publication in 1951 when his groundbreaking work was first published. == Publications ==