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Books > History > European history > From 1900 > Second World War
This investigation of Polish, Jewish, and German sources
demonstrates the roles of music in occupied Poland. Its former
citizens had their access to music controlled by the Nazi Ministry
of Propaganda. It was rationed as other goods, depending on racial
(i.e. also legal) status. Official music performances served as a
propagandistic tool to further divide the Nazi-segregated
population. Music played clandestinely embodied resistance. It
restored the sense of community and helped save musicians
persecuted as Jews, like Wladyslaw Szpilman. The documents analyzed
in the monograph confirm the dehumanization of prospective victims,
mixed with a narcissistic self-righteous view of Nazi songs and
propaganda ultimately led to the organized presence of music in the
Holocaust sites.
"Alfred Wetzler was a true hero. His escape from Auschwitz, and the
report he helped compile, telling for the first time the truth
about the camp as a place of mass murder, led directly to saving
the lives of 120,000 Jews: the Jews of Budapest who were about to
be deported to their deaths. No other single act in the Second
World War saved so many Jews from the fate that Hitler and the SS
had determined for them. This book tells Wetzler's story." . Sir
Martin Gilbert "Wetzler is a master at evoking the universe of
Auschwitz, and especially, his and Vrba's harrowing flight to
Slovakia. The day-by-day account of the tremendous difficulties the
pair faced after the Nazis had called off their search of the camp
and its surroundings is both riveting and heart wrenching. ...]
Shining vibrantly through the pages of the memoir are the tenacity
and valor of two young men, who sought to inform the world about
the greatest outrage ever committed by humans against their fellow
humans." . From Introduction by Dr Robert Rozett] Together with
another young Slovak Jew, both of them deported in 1942, the author
succeeded in escaping from the notorious death camp in the spring
of 1944. There were some very few successful escapes from Auschwitz
during the war, but it was these two who smuggled out the damning
evidence - a ground plan of the camp, constructional details of the
gas chambers and crematoriums and, most convincingly, a label from
a canister of Cyclone gas. The present book is cast in the form of
a novel to allow factual information not personally collected by
the two fugitives, but provided for them by a handful of reliable
friends, to be included. Nothing, however, has been invented. It is
a shocking account of Nazi genocide and of the inhuman conditions
in the camp, but equally shocking is the initial disbelief the
fugitive's revelations met with after their return. Ewald Osers has
translated over 150 books and received many translation prizes and
honours.
Seventy years after it took place, the Holocaust committed against
the Jews of Europe during World War II continues to cast a giant
shadow over humankind. Man's inhumanity to man is not a thing of
the past. Genocidal action is still commonplace around the globe.
Has humankind learned the lessons of the past? Is the human race
doomed to live in a perpetual state of war and self-destruction?
Explaining the Holocaust shows how, given the right circumstances,
human beings can lose their humanity. Does that mean that the
ethical teachings of the major religions are wishful thinking? This
book tackles two questions that continue to be asked by people
everywhere: Why did a highly civilized nation like Germany, in the
middle of the twentieth century, commit the most heinous crime in
all of human history? And if indeed there is a loving God who made
a covenant with the people of Israel, why were millions of
innocent, peaceful Jews dehumanized, starved, tortured, and
systematically murdered? Explaining the Holocaust spares no one in
discussing the enormity of the evil. But it also shows how the
divine spark in human beings did not die during those years of
darkness, and why we still have a glimmer of hope.
Essentials of Holocaust Education: Fundamental Issues and
Approaches is a comprehensive guide for pre- and in-service
educators preparing to teach about this watershed event in human
history. An original collection of essays by Holocaust scholars,
teacher educators, and classroom teachers, it covers a full range
of issues relating to Holocaust education, with the goal of helping
teachers to help students gain a deep and thorough understanding of
why and how the Holocaust was perpetrated. Both conceptual and
pragmatic, it delineates key rationales for teaching the Holocaust,
provides useful historical background information for teachers, and
offers a wide array of practical approaches for teaching about the
Holocaust. Various chapters address teaching with film and
literature, incorporating the use of primary accounts into a study
of the Holocaust, using technology to teach the Holocaust, and
gearing the content and instructional approaches and strategies to
age-appropriate audiences. A ground-breaking and highly original
book, Essentials of Holocaust Education will help teachers engage
students in a study of the Holocaust that is compelling,
thought-provoking, and reflective
Essentials of Holocaust Education: Fundamental Issues and
Approaches is a comprehensive guide for pre- and in-service
educators preparing to teach about this watershed event in human
history. An original collection of essays by Holocaust scholars,
teacher educators, and classroom teachers, it covers a full range
of issues relating to Holocaust education, with the goal of helping
teachers to help students gain a deep and thorough understanding of
why and how the Holocaust was perpetrated. Both conceptual and
pragmatic, it delineates key rationales for teaching the Holocaust,
provides useful historical background information for teachers, and
offers a wide array of practical approaches for teaching about the
Holocaust. Various chapters address teaching with film and
literature, incorporating the use of primary accounts into a study
of the Holocaust, using technology to teach the Holocaust, and
gearing the content and instructional approaches and strategies to
age-appropriate audiences. A ground-breaking and highly original
book, Essentials of Holocaust Education will help teachers engage
students in a study of the Holocaust that is compelling,
thought-provoking, and reflective
A challenging interpretation both of the Holocaust and its wider
context, and the Church of England's role during the period. This
is the first book to consider the Anglican church's response to the
Nazi persecution and then murder of Europe's Jews. Acting as a
critique of the historiography of the 'bystanders' to the
Holocaust, it reveals a community that struggled to understand the
depravity of Nazi anti-semitism. The author outlines Anglican
attitudes to war, anti-semitism and many related issues,
demonstrating the extent and the limits of the Church's engagement
with Europeanpolitics, and shows how Christian interpretations of
Nazi persecution contributed to much wider assumptions about
Germany and German history in Britain during the war years. He then
moves on to the post-war world, indicating theimportant role played
by the Church of England in forging memories of the Nazi era and
especially the suffering of Europe's Jews. Overall, this book
offers a challenging new interpretation of the Holocaust and its
wider context, and of the history of the Church of England and its
role in the intellectual life of the nation.Dr TOM LAWSON teaches
in the Department of History, University of Winchester.
The horror of the Holocaust lies not only in its brutality but in
its scale and logistics; it depended upon the machinery and logic
of a rational, industrialised, and empirically organised modern
society. The central thesis of this book is that Art Spiegelman's
comics all identify deeply-rooted madness in post-Enlightenment
society. Spiegelman maintains, in other words, that the Holocaust
was not an aberration, but an inevitable consequence of
modernisation. In service of this argument, Smith offers a reading
of Spiegelman's comics, with a particular focus on his three main
collections: Breakdowns (1977 and 2008), Maus (1980 and 1991), and
In the Shadow of No Towers (2004). He draws upon a taxonomy of
terms from comic book scholarship, attempts to theorize madness
(including literary portrayals of trauma), and critical works on
Holocaust literature.
Half a century after the collapse of the Nazi regime and the Third
Reich, scholars from a range of fields continue to examine the
causes of Nazi Germany. An increasing number of young Americans are
attempting to understand the circumstances that led to the rise of
the Nazi party and the subsequent Holocaust, as well as the
implication such events may have for today as the world faces a
resurgence of neo-Nazism, ethnic warfare, and genocide. In the
months following World War II, extensive psychiatric and
psychological testing was performed on over 200 Nazis in an effort
to understand the key personalities of the Third Reich and of those
individuals who "just followed orders." In addressing these issues,
the current volume examines the strange history of over 200
Rorschach Inkblot protocols that were administered to Nazi war
criminals and answers such questions as: * Why the long delay in
publishing protocols? * What caused such jealousies among the
principals? * How should the protocols be interpreted? * Were the
Nazis monsters or ordinary human beings? This text delivers a
definitive and comprehensive study of the psychological functioning
of Nazi war criminals -- both the elite and the rank-and-file. In
order to apply a fresh perspective to understanding the causes that
created such antisocial behavior, these analyses lead to a
discussion within the context of previous work done in social and
clinical psychology. Subjects discussed include the authoritarian
personality, altruism, obedience to authority, diffusion of
responsibility, and moral indifference. The implications for
current political events are also examined as Neo-Nazism,
anti-Semitism, and ethnic hate are once again on the rise. While
the book does contain some technical material relating to the
psychological interpretations, it is intended to be a scholarly
presentation written in a narrative style. No prior knowledge of
psychological testing is necessary, but it should be of great
benefit for those interested in the Rorschach Inkblot test, or with
a special interest in psychological testing, personality
assessment, and the history of psychology. It is also intended for
readers with a broad interest in Nazi Germany.
The Nazi regime opened its first concentration camps within weeks
of coming to power, but with the exception of Dachau the history of
these early, improvised camps and their inmates is not yet widely
known. Gabriele Herz's memoir, published for the first time, is a
unique record of a Jewish woman's detention in the first women's
concentration camp in Moringen (housed in part of an
old-established workhouse), at a time when most other inmates were
communists or Jehovah's Witnesses. This original translation of her
wry and perceptive memoir is accompanied by an extensive
introduction that sets Herz's experience in the history both of
political detention under the Nazi regime and of the German
workhouse system.
The persecution and mass-murder of the Jews during World War II
would not have been possible without the modern organization of
division of labor. Moreover, the perpetrators were dependent on
human and organizational resources they could not always control by
hierarchy and coercion. Instead, the persecution of the Jews was
based, to a large extent, on a web of inter-organizational
relations encompassing a broad variety of non-hierarchical
cooperation as well as rivalry and competition. Based on newly
accessible government and corporate archives, this volume combines
fresh evidence with an interpretation of the governance of
persecution, presented by prominent historians and social
scientists. Gerald D. Feldman is Professor of History and Director
of the Institute of European Studies at the University of
California, Berkeley. His special fields of interest are
20th-century German history, and he has a special interest in
business history, most recently authoring a biography of Hugo
Stinnes, participating in the history of the Deutsche Bank, and
writing a history of the Allianz Insurance Company in the Nazi
period. He has recently started work on a history of the Austrian
banks under National Socialism. Wolfgang Seibel is Professor of
Political Science at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Previous
appointments include guest professorships at the Institute for
Advanced Study, Vienna (1992), and the University of California at
Berkeley (1994). He was also a temporary member of the School of
Social Science (1989/90) and of the School of Historical Studies
(2003) of the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton. Currently
(2004/2005) he is a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.
His research is mainly devoted to issues of politics, public
bureaucracy and non-governmental organizations.
Israeli perspective on postmemory. Interdisciplinary focus. Also
includes discussion of postcolonialism.
When the Allies tried German war criminals at the end of World War II they were attempting not only to punish the guilty but also to set down a history of Nazism and of what had happened in Europe. Yet as Donald Bloxham shows in this incisive new account the reality was that these proceedings failed: not only did the guilty often escape punishment but the final solution was largely written out of history in the post-war era.
Few essays about the Holocaust are better known or more important
than Primo Levi's reflections on what he called "the gray zone," a
reality in which moral ambiguity and compromise were pronounced. In
this volume accomplished Holocaust scholars, among them Raul
Hilberg, Gerhard L. Weinberg, Christopher Browning, Peter Hayes,
and Lynn Rapaport, explore the terrain that Levi identified.
Together they bring a necessary interdisciplinary focus to bear on
timely and often controversial topics in cutting-edge Holocaust
studies that range from historical analysis to popular culture.
While each essay utilizes a particular methodology and argues for
its own thesis, the volume as a whole advances the claim that the
more we learn about the Holocaust, the more complex that event
turns out to be. Only if ambiguities and compromises in the
Holocaust and its aftermath are identified, explored, and at times
allowed to remain--lest resolution deceive us--will our awareness
of the Holocaust and its implications be as full as possible.
This book is the translation of the Yizkor (Memorial) Book of the
destroyed Jewish Community of Rozhnyatov, written by the former
residents who survived the Holocaust (Shoah) or emigrated before
the war. It contains the history of the community in addition to
descriptions of the institutions (synagogues, prayer houses),
cultural activities, personalities (Rabbis, leaders, prominent
people, characters) and other aspects of the town. It also
describes the events of the Shoah in the town and lists the
victims. All information is either first-hand accounts or based
upon first-hand accounts and therefore serves as a primary resource
for either research and to individuals seeking information about
the town from which their parents, grandparents or
great-grandparents had immigrated; this is their history The book
was originally written in Hebrew and Yiddish in 1974, translated
into English by volunteers in the Yizkor Book Project of JewishGen,
Inc. and then published by the Yizkor-Books-In-Print Project. The
town is also known by these names: Rozhnyativ Ukrrainian], Ro
niatow Polish], Rozhniatov Yiddish], Rozhnyatov Russian],
Rozhantov, Rozhnyatuv, Rozintov, Roznatov, Roznitev, Rozhnitiv,
Roznjativ It is located at longitude 48 56' N and latitude 24 10' E
and is 302 miles WSW of Kyyiv (Kiev). Other towns covered in the
book are Rozniatow, Perehinsko, Broszniow, Swaryczow, Dolina,
Stanislawow, Stryj, and Lvov.
Contemporary scholars in all disciplines have long recognized that
the Shoah is a critical challenge to Christianity and Western
civilization, as well as a watershed event in Jewish history.
Steven L. Jacobs has completed two complementary works dealing with
contemporary religious responses to the Shoah, one from the
Christian perspective, the other from the Jewish perspective. This
work focuses on the Christian responses to the Holocaust. Contents:
Revisionism and Theology, Harry James Cargas; Evil and Existence:
Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited in Light of
the Shoah, Alan Davies; Suffering, Theology, and the Shoah, Alice
Lyons Eckardt; Mysterium Tremendum: Catholic Grapplings with the
Shoah and its Theological Implications, Eugene J. Fisher; In the
Presence of Burning Children: The Reformation of Christianity after
the Shoah, Douglas K. Huenke; How the Shoah Affects Christian
Belief, Thomas A. Idinopulos; A Contemporary Religious Response to
the Shoah: The Crisis of Prayer, Michael McGarry; The Shoah:
Continuing Theological Challenge for Christianity, John T.
Pawlikowski; Theological and Ethical Reflections on the Shoah:
Getting Beyond the Victimizer Relationship, Rosemary Radford
Reuther; and Asking and Listening, Understanding and Doing: Some
Conditions for Responding to the Shoah Religiously, John K Roth.
Recently, there has been a major shift in the focus of historical
research on World War II towards the study of the involvements of
scholars and academic institutions in the crimes of the Third
Reich. The roots of this involvement go back to the 1920s. At that
time right-wing scholars participated in the movement to revise the
Versailles Treaty and to create a new German national identity. The
contribution of geopolitics to this development is notorious. But
there were also the disciplines of history, geography, ethnography,
art history, archeology, sociology, and demography that devised a
new nationalist ideology and propaganda. Its scholars established
an extensive network of personal and institutional contacts. This
volume deals with these scholars and their agendas. They provided
the Nazi regime with ideas of territorial expansion, colonial
exploitation and racist exclusion culminating in the Holocaust.
Apart from developing ideas and concepts, scholars also actively
worked in the SS and Wehrmacht when Hitler began to implement its
criminal policies in World War II. This collection of original
essays, written by the foremost European scholars in this field,
describes key figures and key programs supporting the expansion and
exploitation of the Third Reich. In particular, they analyze the
historical, geographic, ethnographical and ethno-political ideas
behind the ethnic cleansing and looting of cultural treasures.
Teaching the Holocaust is an important but often challenging task
for those involved in modern Holocaust education. What content
should be included and what should be left out? How can film and
literature be integrated into the curriculum? What is the best way
to respond to students who resist the idea of learning about it?
This book, drawing upon the latest research in the field, offers
practical help and advice on delivering inclusive and engaging
lessons along with guidance on how to navigate through the many
controversies and considerations when planning, preparing, and
delivering Holocaust education. Whether teaching the subject in
History, Religious Education, English or even in a school assembly,
there is a wealth of wisdom which will make the task easier for you
and make the learning experience more beneficial for the student.
Chapters include: The aims of Holocaust education Ethical issues to
consider when teaching the Holocaust Using film and documentaries
in the classroom Teaching the Holocaust through literature The role
of online learning and social media The benefits and practicalities
of visiting memorial sites With lesson plans, resources, and
schemes of work which can be used across a range of different
subjects, this book is essential reading for those that want to
deepen their understanding and deliver effective, thought-provoking
Holocaust education.
The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory: The Crisis of Testimony in
Theory and Practice re-considers survivor testimony, moving from a
subject-object reading of the past to a subject-subject encounter
in the present. It explores how testimony evolves in relationship
to the life of eyewitnesses across time. This book breaks new
ground based on three principles. The first draws on Martin Buber's
"I-Thou" concept, transforming the object of history into an
encounter between subjects. The second employs the Jungian concept
of identity, whereby the individual (internal identity) and the
persona (external identity) reframe testimony as an extension of
the individual. They are a living subject, rather than merely a
persona or narrative. The third principle draws on Daniel
Kahneman's concept of the experiencing self, which relives events
as they occurred, and the remembering self, which reflects on their
meaning in sum. Taken together, these principles comprise a new
literacy of testimony that enables the surviving victim and the
listener to enter a relationship of trust. Designed for readers of
Holocaust history and literature, this book defines the modalities
of memory, witness, and testimony. It shows how encountering the
individual who lived through the past changes how testimony is
understood, and therefore what it can come to mean.
Teaching the Holocaust is an important but often challenging task
for those involved in modern Holocaust education. What content
should be included and what should be left out? How can film and
literature be integrated into the curriculum? What is the best way
to respond to students who resist the idea of learning about it?
This book, drawing upon the latest research in the field, offers
practical help and advice on delivering inclusive and engaging
lessons along with guidance on how to navigate through the many
controversies and considerations when planning, preparing, and
delivering Holocaust education. Whether teaching the subject in
History, Religious Education, English or even in a school assembly,
there is a wealth of wisdom which will make the task easier for you
and make the learning experience more beneficial for the student.
Chapters include: The aims of Holocaust education Ethical issues to
consider when teaching the Holocaust Using film and documentaries
in the classroom Teaching the Holocaust through literature The role
of online learning and social media The benefits and practicalities
of visiting memorial sites With lesson plans, resources, and
schemes of work which can be used across a range of different
subjects, this book is essential reading for those that want to
deepen their understanding and deliver effective, thought-provoking
Holocaust education.
Containing an almost entirely new selection of texts, this second
edition of The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath
presents a critical and important study of the Holocaust. Many of
the pieces challenge conventional analyses and preconceived notions
about the Holocaust, whether regarding genocidal precedents and the
centrality of antisemitism, the relationship between ideological
motivation and economic calculations, or the timing of the decision
on the Final Solution. Starting with the background of the
Holocaust and focusing on colonial violence, antisemitism 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. Several powerful texts then provide readers
with a close look at the psychology of a perpetrator, the fate of
the victims - with a particular emphasis on the role of gender and
the murder of children - and the impossible choices made by Jewish
leaders, educators, and men recruited into the Nazi extermination
apparatus. Finally, there is an analysis of survivors' testimonies
and the creation of an early historical record, and an inquiry into
post-war tribunals and the development of international justice and
legislation with a view to the larger phenomenon of modern genocide
before and after 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. With brief
discussions placing each essay in historical and scholarly context,
this carefully selected compilation is an ideal introduction to the
topic and essential reading for all students of the Holocaust.
This edited collection delves into the horrors of November 1938 and
to what degree they portended the Holocaust, demonstrating the
varied reactions of Western audiences to news about the pogrom
against the Jews. A pattern of stubborn governmental refusal to
help German Jews to any large degree emerges throughout the book.
Much of this was in response to uncertain domestic economic
conditions and underlying racist attitudes towards Jews.
Contrasting this was the outrage expressed by ordinary people
around the world who condemned the German violence and challenged
the policy of Appeasement being advanced by Great Britain and
France towards Adolf Hitler's Nazi German government at the time.
Contributors employ multiple media sources to make their arguments,
and compare these with official government records. For the first
time, a collection on Kristallnacht has taken a truly transnational
approach, giving readers a fuller understanding of how the events
of November 1938 were understood around the Western world.
This interdisciplinary study intergrates historiographical,
literary and cultural methodologies in its focus on a little known
corpus of testimonial accounts published by French women deported
to Nazi camps. Comprising epistemological and literary analyses of
the accounts and an examination of the construction of deportee
identities, it will interest those working in the fields of modern
French literature, genre, women's studies and the Holocaust.
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