Heinrich Graetz was born on October 31, 1817 in the town of Ksionse (modern Ksionz-Gelkopolski) in the kingdom of Prussia, into a poor Jewish family (his father was a butcher), which, due to the boy’s early abilities, tried to give him an education. In 1842, he received permission from the minister to enroll at the University of Breslau without undergoing a preliminary matriculation test. At the university, Graetz studied mainly oriental languages and philosophy. He immediately began to engage in literary work. Graetz's first independent work was the dissertation “Gnosticism and Judaism” (“Gnostizismus und Judenthum”, Breslau, 1845), for which the author received the title of doctor at the University of Jena. Subsequently, he abandoned the conclusions he had made in this work, but when the book was published, it attracted the attention of scientists. Since 1869, having received the title of professor, Graetz read at the University of Breslau; he was a regular contributor and editor of the Monatsschrift from 1869 to 1887. He wrote almost all of his works in Breslau. Graetz's major work is the broadly conceived History of the Jews from Ancient Ages to the Present, which appeared in eleven, later twelve, volumes (1853-1875). The proposed (10th) volume describes the period from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal to the settlement of the Maranos in Holland (1496-1618).