Robin O'Neil

Doctor Robin O'Neil is a former police major crimes investigator who worked at the sharp end of major criminal investigations in the United Kingdom and Central Europe. Formerly of Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan and Home Counties Police service, he then took up the challenge of Academia. After obtaining his Masters and Doctorate with the Hebrew and Jewish Department, University College London he now specialises in Nazi war crimes and the destruction of the European Jewish communities (1933–1945).

A Russian speaker, he has pursued his work to the Baltic States and former USSR. He has launched a number of major investigations into the perpetrators of the Holocaust, particularly those individuals who carried out and engineered the destruction of European Jewry in Lithuania and Poland. His past police service and rank enable him to look closely into the characters of the SS and death camp commandants of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.

O'Neil is universally acknowledged as the central research source for the Schindler story. A historical consultant to several TV documentaries and radio broadcasts in the UK and abroad, he is an honoured guest of Schindler's home town, Svitavy in the Czech Republic, and is a regular lecturer at universities in the United Kingdom, United States, Israel and Eastern Europe. In his spare time and to counteract the intensity of holocaust research he diversifies his interests into the Habsburg dynasty of nineteenth century Vienna and Shakespeare’s England. He is currently engaged in researching The Gustav Mahler Family Under the Third Reich

Publications

 * 1998: EAST EUROPEAN JEWISH AFFAIRS VOL. 28, 49: BELZEC – THE ‘FORGOTTEN’ DEATH CAMP
 * 1999: EAST EUROPEAN JEWISH AFFAIRS, V 29, 85: A REASSESSMENT OF THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS BELZEC:
 * 2008 OSKAR SCHINDLER: STEPPING STONE TO LIFE: JEWISH HERITAGE COMMITTEE, NY, (Amazon)
 * 2009 Belzec: Stepping Stone to Genocide (Museum of Jewish Heritage), NY
 * 2010 The Rabka Four (Amason)
 * 2012 The Mahler Family Legacy Under the Third Reich (Publication date 2013)

Product Description Dr. Robin O'Neil's latest study on the Holocaust, "Oskar Schindler: Stepping Stone to Life," follows thematically from his previous book, "Belzec: Stepping Stone to Genocide," 2008, and his PhD thesis, "Belzec: Operation Reinhardt and the Origins of Jewish Genocide in Galicia." Whereas the previous works focused on the genocidal horrors of World War II, O'Neil's examination of Schindler focuses on life and hope. Dr. O'Neil's work on Schindler has been praised by important personages. In a conversation with Dr. O'Neil in 1995, Mrs. Oskar Schindler said, "My husband would have been proud of you." Professor Michael Berkowitz, of University College London, commented that "Dr. O'Neil's research re. Oskar Schindler is both fascinating and of fine scholarship." Judge Moshe Bejski wrote in 2002, "Your research material is exemplary and corrects many of the inaccuracies in film, written and the spoken word about Schindler." And Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent Holocaust scholar, wrote: "No one has done more justice to the life and achievements of Oscar Schindler than Dr. Robin O'Neil, whose archival detective work and zeal for telling the story in all its fascinating detail is of the highest order." Kevin Roberts

Dr. O'Neil worked on the Schindler story off and on since 1987. He took on many tasks in the intervening years, meeting people central to the story during his travels in Europe and Israel and the United States, investigating numerous leads, reading published and unpublished materials, questioning, observing, writing, and always taking notes and filing them away. Parts of the story would emerge in his other writings, many of which appeared online on JewishGen. Manuscripts such as "Poland and her Jews 1941-1944," translation of the "Kovno Ghetto Diary," and "Rabka Police School: Poland" enhanced his reputation as a foremost Nazi war crimes researcher who writes scholarly works on the destruction of European Jewish communities in an informal and highly readable style. "Oskar Schindler: Stepping Stone to Life" is the definitive work on Oskar Schindler. Dr. O'Neil examines the enigmatic Schindler, using all published and unpublished research to take the reader through all the evidence to the surprising conclusion. Joyce Field (JewishGen)


 * E-Book Publications
 * BELZEC—THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWS IN THE DISTRICT OF GALICIA
 * GALICIA, POLAND
 * SCHINDLER' STEPPING STONE TO LIFE
 * KAUNAS, LITHUANIA: THE KOVNO GHETTO DIARY (KOVNO GHETTO)
 * POLAND AND HER JEWS 1941 - 1944
 * BELZEC: PROTOTYPE FOR THE FINAL SOLUTION
 * RABKA POLICE SCHOOL, POLAND


 * Lectures on Holocaust Related Subjects:
 * Educational establishments and Synagogues, UK. Other Aspects 2000.
 * Belzec Archaeology lecture: Leicester University

2006.
 * The Elchanan and Miriam Elkes Memorial Lecture ‘Stepping Stones to Genocide - Aktion Reinhardt and the Holocaust’
 * Holocaust Education: Co-founder, Historical Consultant and contributor to: www.holocaustresearchproject.org


 * Consultant and participant on documentary film projects – Israel, Germany, US and UK television. 1998-2000: Archaeology. Seconded to the Torun University (Poland) archaeological survey on the site of the former Belzec Death Camp, Poland.