Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath presents a critical and important study of the Holocaust. Complete with an introduction that summarises the state of the field, this book contains major reinterpretations by leading holocaust authors along with key texts on testimony, memory, and justice after the catastrophe. Many of the pieces challenge conventional interpretations and truths of the holocaust, whether it has to do with the centrality of anti-Semitism, the importance of economic calculations, or the timing of the decision on the "Final Solution". Starting with the background of the Holocaust by focusing on anti-Semitism and scientific racism as being at the root of the "Final Solution". The book then examines the context of the decision to unleash the genocide of the Jews. Three powerful texts then provide readers with a close look at the psychology of a perpetrator, the attitude of the bystanders, and the fate of the victims. Finally, there is an analysis of survivor's oral testomonies, a deeply revealing discussion on the limits of transmitting the experience of the camps to posterity, and a powerful plea for the prosecution of crimes against humanity.
Raul Hilberg, Michael Burleigh, Henry Friedlander, Saul Friedlander Gotz Ally, Christian Gerlach, Omer Bartov Ernst Klee,Willi Dressen, Volker Riess, Gordon Horwitz, Heda Margolius Kovaly, Lawre
Table of Contents
Introduction Part 1: Origins: Antisemitism and Scientific Racism 1. The Destruction of European Jews: Precedents 2. Psychiatry, German Society and the Nazi 'Euthanasia' Programme 3. Step by Step: The Expansion of Murder, 1939-1941 Part 2: Implementation: Beyond Intentionalism and Functionalism 4. The Extermination of the European Jews in Historiography: Fifty Years Later 5. The Planning Intelligentsia and the 'Final Solution' 6. The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler's Decision in Principle to Exterminate all European Jews 7. German Soldiers and the Holocaust: Historiography, Research and Implications 8. 'Once Again I've got to Play General to the Jews': From the War Diary of Blutordenstrager Felix Landau 9. Places far Away, Laces very Near: Mauthausen, the Camps of the Shoah, and the Bystanders 10. Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 Part 3: Aftermath: Testimony, Justice, and Denial 11. Redefining Heroic Behaviour: The Impromptu Self and the Holocaust Experience 12. The Gray Zone 13. Remembering in Vain: The Klaus Barbie Trial and Crimes against Humanity
Author Biography
Omer Bartv is Professor of European History at Rutgers University and has written on the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and modern France. His books include Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide and Modern Identity (2000); Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing and representation (1996)and Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (1991)
