Civil War scholar and retired Gettysburg College professor Gabor Boritt dies at 86

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — History professor Gabor S. Boritt, a Hungarian immigrant to the United States who wrote widely about the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln, has died. He was 86.

Boritt had been a professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania for many years, founding the Civil War Institute and helping establish the $50,000 Lincoln Prize for scholarship related to the Civil War.

He died Monday in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, according to his son.

Boritt was born in Budapest in 1940 and survived World War II, although relatives were killed in the Auschwitz Nazi death camp. He was sent to an orphanage after the war and in 1956 joined the Hungarian Revolution as a 16-year-old, his family recalled.

After the uprising was crushed, he made it to the United States, where he worked in a New York hat factory before furthering his education in South Dakota and earning a history doctorate from Boston University.

He taught at several universities before joining the faculty at Gettysburg in 1981. Boritt served on the board of the Gettysburg Foundation and was involved in the construction of a new visitor’s center at Gettysburg National Military Park.

He was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2008.

A screening of “Budapest to Gettysburg,” a documentary about his life created by his son, Jake Boritt, will be held on Lincoln’s Birthday, Feb. 12, in Gettysburg.