The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation » (4th Edition)

Donald L. Niewyk is professor of history at Southern Methodist University. He received his Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1968. He specializes in modern European history. His research centers around Germany between the two World Wars, and his teaching interests range broadly from political to cultural and social history since the Enlightenment. He is the author of three books: Socialist, Anti-Semite, and Jew; The Jews in Weimar Germany; and The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. He is also an editor of The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. He is currently preparing a study of Holocaust survivors.

The essays in this book debate the origins of the Holocaust, the motivations of the killers, the experience of the victims, and the various possibilities for intervention or rescue.

Preface ix

Editor's Preface to Instructors xi

Editor's Preface to Students xv

Chronology of Events xix

Glossary xxi

Reference Map: Poland, 1939-1945, with Locations of Concentration and Extermination Camps xxiii

Tables: Estimated Jewish and Gypsy Deaths in the Holocaust xxiv

Introduction 1

I Origins of the Holocaust 9

Anti-Semitism Through the Ages John Weiss 12

Hitler's Decisive Role Ian Kershaw 23

The Opening Act of Nazi Genocide Henry Friedlander 38

II The Motivations of the Killers 57

The Nazi Doctors Robert Jay Lifton 60

Hitler's Army Omer Bartov 76

"Ordinary Men" Christopher R. Browning 84

III The Victims' Experiences 101

Helpless Victims Bruno Bettelheim 104

The Will to Survive Terrence Des Pres 109

The Gray Zone Primo Levi 115

Women and the Holocaust Zoë Vania Waxman 128

IV The Problem of Jewish Resistance 141

Two Thousand Years of Jewish Appeasement Raul Hilberg 144

Forms of Jewish Resistance Yehuda Bauer 150

Why the Jewish Councils Cooperated Dan Diner 165

V Bystander Reactions 177

The Poles Helped Persecute the Jews Yisrael Gutman Shmuel Krakowski 180

The Poles Were Fellow Victims Richard C. Lukas 192

Western Europeans and the Jews Michael R. Marrus Robert O. Paxton 206

Righteous Gentiles Nechama Tec 217

VI Possibilities of Rescue 225

The Myth of Rescue William D, Rubinstein 228

The Silence of Pope Pius XII Michael Phayer 240

The Failure to Comprehend Walter Laqueur 252

Suggestions for Additional Reading 267