A ceremony celebrating Gabor’s life and legacy.

Remembering Gabor

Gabor S. Boritt was a Hungarian-born American historian, the Robert Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies and Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. Born in Budapest in 1940, he survived the Holocaust as a child and, following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, fled the country and made his way to the United States. He arrived in America knowing little English and worked on a South Dakota ranch before earning his degrees and devoting his life to the study of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War. He came to Gettysburg College in 1981, where he taught generations of students for nearly three decades. Boritt authored and edited numerous acclaimed books, including “Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream” and “The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows.” In 2008 he received the National Humanities Medal in recognition of his contributions to American history. Above all, Gabor was a gifted storyteller and a generous mentor whose warmth, curiosity, and humor touched all who knew him. His legacy lives on in his family, his students, and the institute he built.