Synopses & Reviews
andldquo;Compelling . . . Lower brings to the forefront an unexplored aspect of the Holocaust.andrdquo; andmdash;
Washington Post In a surprising account that powerfully revises history, Wendy Lower uncovers the role of German women on the Nazi eastern frontandmdash;not only as plunderers and direct witnesses, but as actual killers. Lower, drawing on twenty years of archival research and fieldwork, presents startling evidence that these women were more than andldquo;desk murderersandrdquo; or comforters of murderous German men: they went on andldquo;shopping spreesandrdquo; and romantic outings to the Jewish ghettos; they were present at killing-field picnics, not only providing refreshment but also shooting Jews. And Lower uncovers the stories of SS wives with children of their own whose brutality is as chilling as any in history.
Hitlerandrsquo;s Furies challenges our deepest beliefs: women can be as brutal as men, and the evidence can be hidden for seventy years.
andldquo;Disquieting . . . Earlier books about the Holocaust have offered up poster girls of brutality and atrocity . . . [Lowerandrsquo;s] insight is to track more mundane lives, and to argue for a vastly wider complicity.andrdquo; andmdash;New York Times
andldquo;An unsettling but significant contribution to our understanding of how nationalism, and specifically conceptions of loyalty, are normalized, reinforced, and regulated.andrdquo; andmdash;Los Angeles Review of Books
Review
National Book Award FinalistNational Jewish Book Award Finalist
"Disquieting . . . Ms. Lowerand#8217;s book is partly the study of a youthquake . . . Earlier books about the Holocaust have offered up poster girls of brutality and atrocity . . .[Lowerand#8217;s] insight is to track more mundane lives, and to argue for a vastly wider complicity."
and#8212;New York Times
"Intriguing and chilling . . . feminism run amok."
and#8212;Chicago Tribune
"Compelling. . . By focusing on the role of ordinary women and#8212; rather than the already notorious female concentration camp guards and#8212; Lower brings to the forefront an unexplored aspect of the Holocaust. . . Lowerand#8217;s careful research proves that the capacity for indifferent cruelty is not reserved for men and#8212; it exists in all of us."
and#8212;Washington Post
"A virtuosic feat of scholarship."
and#8212;Kirkus Reviews
"Well-researched . . . As gripping and eye-opening as it is chilling."
and#8212;People
"Often harrowing and even disturbing... [Hitler's Furies]and#160;shines a stark light on the ordinary women who accompanied the and#8220;ordinary menand#8221; of Christopher Browningand#8217;s landmark study."
and#8212;New Statesman (UK)
"Lower sheds some much-needed light on an aspect of WWII history that has remained in the shadows for decades . . . Surprising and deeply unsettling, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on the Holocaust.and#8221;and#8212;Booklist
and#8220;Hitlers Furies will be experienced and remembered as a turning point in both womenand#8217;s studies and Holocaust studies.and#8221;and#8212;Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands
and#8220;Hitler's Furies is the first book to follow the biographical trajectories of individual women whose youthful exuberance, loyalty to the Fand#252;hrer, ambition, and racism took them to the deadliest sites in German-occupied Europe. Drawing on immensely rich source material, Lower integrates women perpetrators and accomplices into the social history of the Third Reich, and illuminates them indelibly as a part of post-war East and West German memory that has been, until this book, unmined.and#8221;and#8212;Claudia Koonz, author of Mothers in the Fatherland
and#8220;Hitlerand#8217;s Furies is a long overdue and superb addition to the history of the Holocaust. The role of women perpetrators during the Final Solution has been too much glossed over. Lowerand#8217;s book provides an important and stunning corrective. It is a significant addition to our understanding of the role of ordinary Germans in the Reichand#8217;s genocide.and#8221;and#8212;Deborah Lipstadt, author of Eichmann on Trial
and#8220;Lower shifts away from the narrow focus on the few thousand female concentration camp guards who have been at the center of previous studies of female culpability in Nazi crimes and identifies the cluster of professionsand#8212;nurses, social workers, teachers, office workersand#8212;that in addition to family connections brought nearly one-half million women to the German East and into close proximity with pervasive Nazi atrocities. Through the lives of carefully-researched individuals, she captures a spectrum of career trajectories and behavior. This is a book that artfully combines the study of gender with the illumination of individual experience.and#8221;and#8212;Christopher R. Browning, author of Ordinary Men
Synopsis
On July 13, 1941, the 450 Men of the German Reserve Police Battalion 101 were driven to the Polish village of Jozefow. They were ordered to enter the village of 1,800 Jews, select several hundred young men for the work camp, and then kill the rest of the inhabitants. Over the course of 16 months, this battalion was responsible for the massacre of 39,000 Jews and the deportation to Treblinka of 44,000 more.
In this "staggering and important book" (Chicago Tribune), Christopher R. Browning asks what kind of men would carry out such a gruesome task and finds that they were ordinary men: elderly, poorly educated, and drawn from the lower echelons of society. Given the chance to refuse orders, only a small number of them took the opportunity to walk away. A remarkable examination of human nature, Ordinary Men concludes with the most disturbing question of all: If the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men could not?
"A major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust". -- Newsweek
"Finely focused and stunningly powerful". -- New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
The shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews.
Synopsis
The shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews.
Synopsis
A revelatory new history ofand#160;the role of German women in the Holocaust, not only as plunderers and direct witnesses, but as actual killers on the eastern front during World War II.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-218) and index.
About the Author
WENDY LOWERandnbsp;is the John K. Roth Chair of History at Claremont McKenna College and research associate of the Ludwig Maximillians Universitat in Munich. A historical consultant for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, she has conducted archival research and field work on the Holocaust for twenty years. She lives with her family in Los Angeles, CA, and Munich, Germany.
Table of Contents