Synopses & Reviews
This volume in the Problems in European Civilization series features a collection of secondary-source essays focusing on aspects of the Holocaust. The essays in this book debate the origins of the Holocaust, the motivations of the killers, the experience of the victims, and the various possibilities for intervention or rescue.
About the Author
Donald L. Niewyk is professor of history at Southern Methodist University. He received his Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1968. He specializes in modern European history. His research centers around Germany between the two World Wars, and his teaching interests range broadly from political to cultural and social history since the Enlightenment. He is the author of three books: Socialist, Anti-Semite, and Jew; The Jews in Weimar Germany; and The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. He is also an editor of The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. He is currently preparing a study of Holocaust survivors.
Table of Contents
Chronology of Events. Glossary. Reference Map: Poland, 1939-1945, with Locations of Concentration and Extermination Camps. Tables: Estimated Jewish and Gypsy Deaths in the Holocaust. Introduction. Part I: ORIGINS OF THE HOLOCAUST. John Weiss: "Anti-Semitism Through the Ages". Ian Kershaw: "Hitler's Decisive Role". Henry Friedlander: "The Opening Act of Nazi Genocide". Part II: THE MOTIVATIONS OF THE KILLERS. Robert Jay Lifton: "The Nazi Doctors". Omer Bartov: Hitler's Army". Christopher Browning: "Ordinary Men". Part III: THE VICTIMS' EXPERIENCE. Bruno Bettelheim: "Helpless Victims". Terrence Des Pres: "The Will to Survive". Primo Levi: "The Gray Zone". Zoe Vania Waxman: "Women and the Holocaust". Part IV: THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH RESISTANCE. Raul Hilberg: "Two Thousand Years of Jewish Appeasement". Yehuda Bauer: "Forms of Jewish Resistance". Dan Diner: "Why the Jewish Councils Cooperated". Part V: BYSTANDER REACTIONS. Yisrael Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski: "The Poles Helped Persecute the Jews". Richard C. Lukas: "The Poles Were Fellow Victims". Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton: "Western Europeans and the Jews". Nechama Tec: "Righteous Gentiles." Part VI: POSSIBILITIES OF RESCUE. David S. Wyman: "The Abandonment of the Jews". William D. Rubinstein: "The Myth of Rescue". Michael Phayer: "The Silence of Pope Pius XII". Walter Laqueur: "The Failure to Comprehend". Suggestions for Additional Reading.