Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – History professor Gabor S. passed away. Burritt, a Hungarian immigrant to the United States, wrote extensively about the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln. He was 86 years old.
Burritt was a professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania for many years, where he founded the Civil War Institute and helped establish the $50,000 Lincoln Prize for Civil War-related scholarship.
He died Monday in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, according to his son.
Burritt was born in Budapest in 1940 and survived World War II, although relatives were killed in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. His family reported that he was sent to an orphanage after the war, and in 1956 he joined the Hungarian Revolution when he was 16 years old.
After the uprising was crushed, he arrived in the United States, where he worked in a hat factory in New York before continuing his education in South Dakota and earning a doctorate in history from Boston University.
He taught at several universities before joining the faculty at Gettysburg in 1981. Burritt served on the board of the Gettysburg Foundation and was involved in the construction of a new visitor center at Gettysburg National Military Park.
He was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2008.
“Budapest to Gettysburg,” a documentary about his life created by his son, Jake Burritt, will be shown on Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, in Gettysburg.