The postmodern human condition and relationship to God were forged in response to Auschwitz. Christian theology must now address the challenge posed by the Shoah. Grace in Auschwitz offers a constructive theology of grace that enables twenty-first-century Westerners to relate meaningfully to the Christian tradition in the wake of the Holocaust and unprecedented evil. Through narrative theological testimonial history, the first part articulates the human condition and relationship to God experienced by concentration camp inmates. The second part draws from the lives and works of Simone Well, Dorothee Solle, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Sergei Bulgakov to propose and apply a coherent kenotic model enabling the transposition of the Christian doctrine of grace into categories strongly correlating with the experience of Auschwitz survivors. This model centers on the vulnerable Jesus Christ, a God who takes on the burden of the human condition and freely suffers alongside and for human beings. In and through the person ofJesus, God is made present and active in the midst of spiritual desolation and destitution, providing humanity and solace to others.

One of the youngest survivors of the Warsaw ghetto, author Sahbra Anna Markus lived a life only those who have survived Hitler's hell can imagine. In Only a Bad Dream? she narrates the drama of her early years through her most vivid memories. Sahbra courageously recounts those childhood experiences in her compelling voice, now freed from the repeated warnings: "Don't tell anyone you're a Jew." "Don't forget you're a Jew." "It was only a dream." "Hang on tight, or you'll get lost and die."

She tells of traipsing through forests at night, fleeing certain death, of her parents hiding her in a church, desperate to save her life. A frantic search for surviving family found the Markuses traveling throughout Europe on foot, by rowboat, military train, farm wagon, trucks, and finally the ship Caserta that delivered them to the land of hope, freedom, and new beginnings-the only Jewish homeland, Israel.

Only a Bad Dream shares how, in the midst of hunger and deprivation, Sahbra still found joy in simple things like cats, the moon, wolves, and fireflies. A story of the triumph of the human spirit, this memoir provides strong insight into the courage, strength, and dignity possessed by those who endured the Holocaust.

"Holocaust Remembrance Between the National and the Transnational" provides a key study of the remembrance of the Jewish Catastrophe and the Nazi-era past in the world arena. It uses a range of primary documentation from the restitution conferences, speeches and presentations made at the Stockholm International Forum of 2000 (SIF 2000), a global event and an attempt to mark a defining moment in the inter-cultural construction of the political and institutional memory of the Holocaust in the USA, Europe and Israel. Containing oral history interviews with British delegates to the conference and contemporary press reports, this book explores the inter-relationships between global and national Holocaust remembrances.The causes, consequences and 'cosmopolitan' intellectual context for understanding the SIF 2000 are discussed in great detail. Larissa Allwork examines this seminal moment in efforts to globally promote the important, if ever controversial, topics of Holocaust remembrance, worldwide Genocide prevention and the commemoration of the Nazi past. Providing a balanced assessment of the Stockholm Project, this book is an important study for those interested in the remembrance of the Holocaust and the Third Reich, as well as the recent global direction in memory studies.""

For centuries Jewish shtetls were an active part of Belarusian life; today, they are gone. The Belarusian Shtetl is a landmark volume which offers, for the first time in English, an illuminating look at the shtetls' histories, the lives lived and lost in them, and the memories, records, and physical traces of these communities that remain today. Since 2012, under the auspices of the Sefer Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, teams of scholars and students from many different disciplines have returned to the sites of former Jewish shtetls in Belarus to reconstruct their past. These researchers have interviewed a wide range of both Jews and non-Jews to find and document traces of Shtetl history, to gain insights into community memories, and to discover surviving markers of identity and ethnic affiliation. In the process, they have also unearthed evidence from old cemeteries and prewar houses and the stories behind memorials erected for Holocaust victims. Drawing on the wealth of information these researchers have gathered, The Belarusian Shtetl creates compelling and richly textured portraits of the histories and everyday lives of each shtetl. Important for scholars and accessible to the public, these portraits set out to return the Jewish shtetls to their rightful places of prominence in the histories and legacies of Belarus.

While the coerced human experiments are notorious among all the atrocities under National Socialism, they have been marginalised by mainstream historians. This book seeks to remedy the marginalisation, and to place the experiments in the context of the broad history of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Paul Weindling bases this study on the reconstruction of a victim group through individual victims' life histories, and by weaving the victims' experiences collectively together in terms of different groupings, especially gender, ethnicity and religion, age, and nationality. The timing of the experiments, where they occurred, how many victims there were, and who they were, is analysed, as are hitherto under-researched aspects such as Nazi anatomy and executions. The experiments are also linked, more broadly, to major elements in the dynamic and fluid Nazi power structure and the implementation of racial policies. The approach is informed by social history from below, exploring both the rationales and motives of perpetrators, but assessing these critically in the light of victim narratives.

This book is a translation of the Ruzhany Memorial (Yizkor) Book that was published in 1957 in Hebrew and Yiddish; it is based upon the memoirs of former Jewish residents of the town who had left before the war. Ruzhany, called Rozana in Polish and Ruzhnoy in Yiddish, is now a small town in Belarus. It was part of Russia at the time of World War I and Poland afterwards for a short period, and then the Soviet Union. In 1939, the Jewish population was at its peak 3,500, comprising 78% of the town's population. In November 1942, every Jewish resident was murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Founded in the mid-1500s, Jews were welcomed by the private owner, the Grand Chancellor, Duke Leu Sapeiha. He valued Jewish settlers who would create a variety of businesses that would produce profits and generate collectable taxes. They opened schools, built many small synagogues, and the Great Synagogue in the main square. In addition they established many social institutions. The market town thrived. Starting in the early 1900s, many young Jews immigrated to the United States so that the young men could avoid prolonged conscription into the Czar's army.

Orhei, Moldova (originally Orheyev, Bessarabia) has had a long history of a Jewish presence. Gravestones dating to the early 1700 s have been found in the Jewish cemetery. This Memorial (Yizkor) book has numerous personal accounts of the Holocaust. However, it is much more than that. It contains detailed discussions of the history of the town and the area. Most importantly it discusses the social and political organizations in the town during the early 1900 s, including the people involved in those organizations. This book was written by a committee of former Orhei residents with the hope that their town would not be forgotten. This English translation is an attempt to offer descendants of the inhabitants of Orhei information about all aspects of their ancestors and their ancestral town. Let us honor the memories and wishes of the Orhei victims and survivors by reading this wonderful testimony to the town and inhabitants of Orhei - our ancestors and our ancestral town. This publication by the "Yizkor Books in Print Project" of JewishGen, Inc., serves to provide the English speaking community with these first-hand accounts in book format, so that researchers and descendants of Jewish emigrants from the town can learn this history. 520 pages with illustrations, Hard Cover

In The Existential Philosophy of Etty Hillesum Meins G.S. Coetsier breaks new ground by demonstrating the Jewish existential nature of Etty Hillesum's spiritual and cultural life in light of the writings of Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Hillesum's diaries and letters, written between 1941 and 1943, illustrate her struggle to come to terms with her personal life in the context of the Second World War and the Shoah. By finding God under the rubble of the horrors, she rediscovers the divine presence between humankind, while taking up responsibility for the Other as a way to embrace justice and compassion. In a fascinating, accessible and thorough study, Coetsier dispels much of the confusion that assails readers when they are exposed to the bewildering range of Christian and Jewish influences and other cultural interpretations of her writings. The result is a convincing and profound picture of Etty Hillesum's path to spiritual freedom.