Dr. Elizabeth “Barry” White is a professional historian and an expert on the Holocaust, World War II, genocide, and international criminal justice. She has directed research to investigate and prosecute Nazi criminals and other human rights violators for the U.S. Department of Justice, serving as Deputy Director and Chief Historian of the Office of Special Investigations and Deputy Chief and Chief Historian of the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section. At the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, she has served as the Research Director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide and as a historian in the Division of the Senior Historian.
Together with Dr. Joanna Sliwa, Dr. White has authored The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles during the Holocaust (Simon & Schuster, 2024). She is also the author of German Influence in the Argentine Army, 1900-1945 (Garland, 1991), as well as numerous articles, official reports, and papers on Holocaust crimes, U.S. intelligence employment of Nazi criminals, and efforts to achieve accountability for international crimes. For the U.S. State Department, she traced gold looted from Nazi victims -- including gold teeth -- to the postwar accounts of European central banks, leading to the establishment of an international assistance fund for Holocaust survivors. For the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, she produced Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech, a tool for countering the impact of hate speech that can lead to genocide and mass atrocities. Dr. White has given numerous public talks and interviews on the Holocaust, genocide prevention, and the quest for justice for Nazi crimes.
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