A legend that captures the imagination of audiences and shapes representations of the Holocaust is that in Nazi concentration camps Jewish musicians were forced to play a Tango of Death as men, women and children made their way to the gas chambers. This book traces the origins of this legend to a little known concentration camp in Ukraine where musicians were forced to perform a Jewish tango at executions before they themselves were murdered. By reconstructing the creation of this legend, the book shows how the actual history is hidden, distorted, or even lost altogether.

A collection of articles which offer an insight into the opinions and attitudes of the German population, the East Europeans and the Poles towards Jews during the period of Nazi persecution. Historians are able to make important distinctions between various periods, groups and regions. At the close of this study is a selection of articles that deal with support for the Jews.

"An excellent introduction." . War in History ." . . the essays in this volume, individually and as a whole, represent for the English reader a valuable addition to scholarship on the emergence of genocidal policies." . Journal of Jewish Studies "A very interesting and valuable contribution to the debate on National Socialism." . Osterreichische Zeitschrift fur Politikwissenschaft Moving beyond the well-established problems and public discussions of the Holocaust, this collection of essays, written by some of the leading German historians of the younger generation, leaves behind the increasingly agitated arguments of the last years and substantially broadens, and in many areas revises, our knowledge of the Holocaust. Unlike previous studies, which have focused on whether the Holocaust could best be understood as the "fulfilment of a world view or as a process of "cumulative radicalisation," these articles provide an overview of how situational elements and gradual processes of radicalisation were variously combined with ever-changing objectives and fundamental ideological convictions. Focusing on the developments in Poland, the Soviet Union, Serbia, and France the authors find that heretofore we have actually had very little knowledge of many aspects of this history, particularly with regards to the specific forces that motivated German policy in the individual regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Thus the National-Socialist extermination policy is not seen as a secret undertaking but rather as part of the German conquest and occupation policy in Europe. Ulrich Herbert is Professor of Modern History at the University of Freiburg i. Br."

The role of massacre in history has been given little focused attention either by historians or academics in related fields. This is surprising as its prevalence and persistence surely demands that it should be a subject of serious and systematic exploration. What exactly is a massacre? When - and why - does it happen? Is there a cultural, as well as political framework within which it occurs? How do human societies respond to it? What are its social and economic repercussions? Are massacres catalysts for change or are they part of the continuity of the human saga? These are just some of the questions the authors address in this important volume. Chronologically and geographically broad in scope, The Massacre in History provides in-depth analysis of particular massacres and themes associated with them from the 11th century to the present. Specific attention is paid to 15th century Christian-Jewish relations in Spain, the St. Batholemew's Day massacre, England and Ireland in the civil war era, the 19th century Caucasus, the rape of Nanking in 1937 and the Second World War origins of the Serb-Croat conflict. The book explores the subject of massacre from a variety of perspectives - its relationship to politics, culture, religion and society, its connection to ethnic cleansing and genocide, and its role in gender terms and in relation to the extermination of animals. The historians provide evidence to suggest that the "massacre" is often central to the course of human development and societal change.

In Emigre Voices Lewkowicz and Grenville present twelve oral history interviews with men and women who came to Britain as Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria in the late 1930s. Many of the interviewees rose to great prominence in their chosen career, such as the author and illustrator Judith Kerr, the actor Andrew Sachs, the photographer and cameraman Wolf Suschitzky, the violinist Norbert Brainin, and the publisher Elly Miller. The narratives of the interviewees tell of their common struggles as child or young adult refugees who had to forge new lives in a foreign country and they illuminate how each interviewee dealt with the challenges of forced emigration and the Holocaust. The voices of the twelve interviewees provide the reader with a unique and original source, which gives direct access to the lived multifaceted experience of the interviewees and their contributions to British culture.

The noted historian and Litvak (Jews of Lithuanian heritage), Josef Rosin, presents the history of 50 Jewish towns in Lithuania. The book includes information about the founding of the settlements, their development into vibrant communities, and their ultimate destruction in the Shoah (Holocaust). This is Josefs third book, which brings to 102, the number of communities that he has documented. The thorough coverage shows the rich culture from which many American, South African and Israeli Jews of Litvak heritage can trace their history. This book is a rich resource for Litvak genealogists to extend their knowledge to understand the communities from which their ancestors came. This book is a valuable resource for libraries, synagogues and Litvak homes. Below is the list of towns with the Yiddish name first, and the Lithuanian name in parenthesis: Akmyan (Akmen), Anishok (Onukis), Erzhvilik (Ervilkas), Gelvan (Gelvonai), Girtegole (Girkalnis), Grinkishok (Grinkikis), Grishkabud (Grikabdis), Gudleve (Garliava), Kaltinan (Kaltinnai), Kamai (Kamajai), Krakinove (Krekenava), Kruzh (Kraiai), Kurshan (Kurnai), Laizeve (Laiuva), Leipun (Leipalingis), Loikeve (Laukuva), Ludvinove (Liudvinavas), Luknik (Luok), Maliat (Moltai), Miroslav (Miroslavas), Nemoksht (Nemakiai), Pashvitin (Pavitinys), Pikeln (Pikeliai), Plotel (Plateliai), Pumpyan (Pumpnai), Rasein (Raseiniai), Remigole (Ramygala), Riteve (Rietavas), Sapizishok (Zapykis), Shadeve (eduva), Shidleve (iluva), Siad (Seda), Srednik (Seredius), Survilishok (Survilikis), Svadushch (Svedasai), Trashkun (Troknai), Trishik (Trykiai), Tsaikishok (ekik), Tsitevyan (Tytuvnai), Vabolnik (Vabalninkas), Vaigeve (Vaiguva), Vainute (Vainutas), Vekshne (Viekniai), Velon (Veliouna), Vidukle (Vidukl), Yelok (Ylakiai), Yezne (Jieznas), Zharan (arnai), and Zhidik (idikai).

6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, but this is only half the story. Doris Bergen reveals how the Holocaust extended beyond the Jews to engulf millions of other victims in related programmes of mas-murder. The Nazi killing machine began with the disabled, and went on to target Afro-Germans, Gypsies, non-Jewish Poles, French African soldiers, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexual men and Jehovah's Witnesses. As Nazi Germany conquered more territories and peoples, Hitler's war turned soldiers, police officers and doctors into trained killers, creating a veneer of legitimacy around vicious acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Using the testimonies of both survivors and eyewitnesses, as well as a wealth of rarely seen photographs, Doris Bergen shows the true extent of the catastrophe that overwhelmed Europe during the Second World War, in a gripping story of the lives and deaths of real people.

Leading international Holocaust scholars reflect upon their personal experiences and professional trajectories over many decades of immersion in the field. Changes are examined within the context of individual odysseys, including shifting cultural milieus and robust academic conflicts.

This deeply researched and informative book traces the biographies of thirty "typical" perpetrators of the Holocaust some well known, some obscure who survived World War II. Donald M. McKale reveals the shocking reality that the perpetrators were only rarely, if ever, tried or punished for their crimes, and nearly all alleged their innocence in Germany's extermination of nearly six million European Jews during the war. He highlights the bitter contrasts between the comfortable postwar lives of many war criminals and the enduring suffering of their victims. The author shows how immediately after the war's end in 1945, Hitler's minions, whether the few placed on trial or the many living in freedom, carried on what amounted to a massive postwar ideological campaign against Jews. To be sure, the perpetrators didn't challenge the fact that the Holocaust happened. But in the face of exhaustive evidence showing their culpability, nearly all declared they had done nothing wrong, they had not known about the Jewish persecution until the war's end, and they had little or no responsibility or guilt for what had happened. In making these and other claims denying their involvement in the Holocaust, they defended the Nazi atrocities and anti-Semitism. Nearly every fabrication of these war criminals found its way into the mythology of postwar Holocaust deniers, who have used them, in one form or another, to buttress the deniers' biggest lie that the Holocaust did not happen. The perpetrators, therefore, helped advance Holocaust denial without having denied the Holocaust happened. Written in a compelling narrative style, Nazis after Hitler is the first to provide an overview of the lives of Nazis who survived the war, the vast majority of whom escaped justice. McKale provides a unique and accessible synthesis of the extensive research on the Holocaust and Nazi war criminals that will be invaluable for all readers interested in World War II."

With an overview essay, timeline, reference entries, and annotated bibliography, this resource is a concise, one-stop reference on antisemitism in today's society. Stretching back to biblical times, antisemitism is perhaps the world's oldest hatred of a group. It has manifested itself around the world, sometimes taking the form of superficially innocent jokes and at other times promoting such tragedies as the Holocaust. Far from disappeared, its continued existence in today's society is evidenced by vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and shootings at synagogues. This book explores the causes and consequences of contemporary antisemitism, placing this form of hatred in its historical, political, and social contexts. An overview essay surveys the background and significance of antisemitism and provides historical context for discussions of contemporary topics. A timeline highlights key events related to antisemitism. Some 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries provide objective, fundamental information about people, events, and other topics related to antisemitism. These entries cite works for further reading and provide cross-references to related topics. An annotated bibliography cites and evaluates some of the most important resources on antisemitism suitable for student research. An overview essay places antisemitism in its historical context and discusses its contemporary significance A timeline identifies key developments related to antisemitism Roughly 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries provide objective, fundamental information about topics related to antisemitism, with an emphasis on modern society Entry bibliographies direct users to specific sources of additional information An annotated bibliography lists and evaluates some of the most important broad works on antisemitism

American church-related liberal arts colleges are dedicated to two traditions: Christian thought and liberal learning. According to Haynes, the moral continuity of these traditions was severed by the Holocaust. Because so many representations of these traditions contributed to the Nazis' ideological and physical efforts to annihilate millions of men, women, and children, it is unclear whether these traditions can any longer be said to facilitate human flourishing. Haynes presents a convincing argument that the post-Holocaust church-related college can participate in the restoration of these ruptured traditions through a commitment to Holocaust Education. This book provides valuable information for teachers who already offer a Holocaust course or for those who are considering doing so. In addition, the author presents an accurate picture of Holocaust Education at church-related colleges through an analysis of his nationwide survey. This book will be an important resource for scholars, teachers, and administrators.

In 1961 Adolf Eichmann went on trial in Jerusalem for his part in the Nazi persecution and mass murder of Europe 's Jews. For the first time a judicial process focussed on the genocide against the Jews and heard Jewish witnesses to the catastrophe. The trial and the controversies it caused had a profound effect on shaping the collective memory of what became the Holocaust .

This volume, a special issue of the Journal of Israeli History, brings together new research by scholars from Europe, Israel and the USA.

Auschwitz. Treblinka. The very names of these Nazi camps evoke unspeakable cruelty. Sobibor is less well known, and this book discloses the horrors perpetrated there.Established in German-occupied Poland, the camp at Sobibor began its dreadful killing operation in May 1942. By October 1943, approximately 167,000 people had been murdered there. Sobibor is not well documented and, were it not for an extraordinary revolt on 14 October 1943, we would know little about it. On that day, prisoners staged a remarkable uprising in which 300 men and women escaped. The author identifies only forty-seven who survived the war.Sent in June 1943 to Sobibor, where his wife and family were murdered, Jules Schelvis has written the first book-length, fully documented account of the camp. He details the creation of the killing centre, its personnel, the use of railways, selections, forced labour, gas chambers, escape attempts and the historic uprising.In documenting this part of Holocaust history, this compelling and well-researched account advances our knowledge and understanding of the Nazi attempt to annihilate the European Jews.Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

This book is the result of a four-year, in-depth study using social science methodology of those refugees who came as children or youths from Central Europe to the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, fleeing persecution from the National Socialist regime. This study examines their fates in their new country, their successes and tribulations.

Adolf Eichmann was head of Gestapo Division IV-B4, the Third Reich's notorious Security Service, which was responsible for implementing the "Final Solution" of the European Jews in the Greater German Reich. False Gods is a book that will be controversial - not only with the Jewish community, but also with the historical "revisionists" who seek to deny the Holocaust. Eichmann's testimony not only challenges the generally accepted history of that period, but it provides much in-depth detail of the historical facts - facts which Eichmann himself was fully prepared to confirm from the surviving documents of the period that were submitted by both the prosecution and defense during his trial. In False Gods Eichmann states: "I shall describe the genocide of the Jews, how it happened and give, in addition, my thoughts of the past and of today. For not only did I have to see with my own eyes the fields of death, the battlefields on which life died away, I saw much worse. I saw how, through a few words, through the mere concise order of an individual to whom the state gave authority, such fields for the extinction of life were created. I saw the machinery of death. Grasping cogs within cogs, like clockwork. I saw those who observed the process of the work; and during the process. I saw them always repeating the work and they looked at the seconds-hand, which hurried; hurried like life to death. The greatest and cruellest dance of death of all time. That I saw. And I prepare to describe it, as a warning." Adolf Eichmann

"This anthology does indeed offer a panoramic survey, and thus is a valuable contribution to Holocaust literature.]"
--"The Princeton Seminary Bulletin"

"Rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok has provided a much needed and indeed "panoramic survey of Holocaust theology" (1) that offers a comprehensive overview of excerpts from representative writings in the field. "Holocaust Theology: A Reader" provides a fine, comprehensive overview of the interpretive possibilities."
--"Journal of the American Academy of Religion"

""Holocaust Theology: A Reader" should prove useful as an introductory text which grapples with complex issues."
--"SHOFAR"

Where was God during the Holocaust? And where has God been since? How has our religious belief been changed by the Shoah? For more than half a century, these questions have haunted both Jewish and Christian theologians. Holocaust Theology provides a panoramic survey of the writings of more than one hundred leading Jewish and Christian thinkers on these profound theological problems.

Beginning with a general introduction to Holocaust theology and the religious challenge of the Holocaust, this sweeping collection brings together in one volume a coherent overview of the key theologies which have shaped responses to the Holocaust over the last several decades, including those addressing perplexing questions regarding Christian responsibility and culpability during the Nazi era. Each reading is preceded by a brief introduction. The volume will be invaluable to Rabbis and the clergy, students, scholars of the Holocaust and of religion, and all those troubled by the religious implications of the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Contributors include LeoBaeck, Eugene Borowitz, Stephen Haynes, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Steven T. Katz, Primo Levi, Jacob Neusner, John Pawlikowski, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Jonathan Sarna, Paul Tillich, and Elie Wiesel.

How do democratic and pluralistic societies cope with traumatic events in their past? What strategies and taboos are employed to reconstruct wars, revolutions, torturing, mass killings and genocide in a way to make their contradiction to basic human rights and values invisible? This interdisciplinary volume analyzes in detail for the first time, in multiple genres, the history and image of the "German "Wehrmacht"" and the debates in Austria and Germany surrounding two highly contested exhibitions about the war crimes of the German "Wehrmacht" during WWII.

Why didn't the Hungarian Jews do more to resist the 'Final Solution'? Why didn't the Allies bomb the gas chambers at Auschwitz? Why did the Allies sabotage schemes to save the Jews?
In this provocative book, historians from Hungary, Israel, Britain and the United States examine one of the greatest tragedies of World War II -- the deportation and murder of 435,000 Hungarian Jews during the last months of the war when German military and diplomatic power was on the wane. Could Jews in the West have done more to help, or were they 'prisoners' of civil servants and politicians in Whitehall and the US State Department? Drawing on new sources, leading scholars address these controversial issues and shed new light on a shameful period in history.

The injustices committed against millions of Europe's Jews did not end with the fall of the Third Reich. Long after the Nazis had seized the belongings of Holocaust victims, Swiss banks concealed and appropriated their assets, demanding that their survivors produce the death certificates or banking records of the depositors in order to claim their family's property--demands that were usually impossible for the petitioners to meet. Now the full account of the Holocaust deposits affair is revealed by the journalist who first broke the story in 1995. Relying on archival and contemporary sources, Itamar Levin describes the Jewish people's decades-long effort to return death camp victims' assets to their rightful heirs. Levin also uncovers the truth about the behavior of Swiss banking institutions, their complicity with the Nazis, and their formidable power over even their own neutral government.

From the first attempt to settle the fate of German property in neutral countries at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, through the heated negotiations following publication of Levin's investigative article in 1995, to the Swiss banks' ultimate agreement to a $1.25 billion payment in 1997, the pursuit of restitution is a story of delaying tactics and legal complications of almost unimaginable dimensions. Terrified that the traditional and highly marketable wall of secrecy surrounding the Swiss banks would tumble and destroy the industry, the banks' managements were dismissive and uncooperative in determining the location and extent of the assets in question, forcing the United States, other European countries, and Jewish organizations worldwide to apply tremendous pressure for a just resolution. The details and the central characters involved in this struggle, as well as new information about Switzerland's controversial policies during World War II, are fascinating reading for anyone concerned with the Holocaust and its aftermath.