Bauer was a leading historian of the Holocaust, teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Contemporary Jewry for more than three decades.

Born in Prague, he emigrated with his family to Mandatory Palestine in 1939, as Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia.

• He served as director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem from 1995 to 2000.

• He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1998.

• His books include American Jewry and the Holocaust (1981) and Rethinking the Holocaust (2001).