Léon Poliakov (Russian: Лев Поляков; 25 November 1910, Saint Petersburg – 8 December 1997, Orsay) was a French historian who wrote extensively on the Holocaust and antisemitism.

[1] According to historian Jos Sanchez, Poliakov was the first scholar to assess the disposition of Pope Pius XII critically on various issues connected to the Holocaust.

[citation needed] In November 1950, Poliakov wrote "The Vatican and the 'Jewish Question' - The Record of the Hitler Period—And After" in the influential Jewish journal Commentary.

The article was the first to consider the attitude of the papacy during World War II and the Holocaust, but it was not until 1963, when German playwright Rolf Hochhuth published his play Der Stellvertreter, that discussion of Poliakov's initial investigations in this area took on worldwide significance.

Although little noted at the time, Poliakov's 1951 Bréviaire de la haine ("Harvest of Hate") was the first major work on the genocide, predating Raul Hilberg's Destruction of the European Jews by a decade.