The Holocaust: Essays and Documents

by Wolfgang Benz, Randolph Braham, Arthur Hertzberg

Overview

The history of the Holocaust keeps being written and rewritten in ever greater detail, but almost always by Jews. Wolgang Benz's book makes an important contribution by bringing the German perspective to this horrific event. A masterpiece of compression, the books covers all the major topics and issues, from the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, to stripping Jews of their civil rights, from the establishment of ghettos to the creation of killing centers and the development of an efficient system for extermination. The book also includes a chapter on "The Other Genocide: The Persecution of the Sinti and Roma," detailing the crusade against the Gypsies.

From the Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg:

Benz's account is the necessary 'first course' for anyone who wants to know about the Holocaust and to think further about its meaning for humanity. It is of particular importance that the historian who has written this book is a German. This account is trustworthy because its author combines within himself the rare authority of someone who belongs to the past of his nation. He has both understood and transcended its history in this century. The subject of the book, the Holocaust, is somber beyond words, but this account in Benz's words is a cause for hope.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231112154
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	03/30/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Wolfgang Benz is professor of antisemitism research at the Technical University of Berlin. He has written numerous studies on the history of the Jews during the Third Reich, including The Jews of Germany, 1933-1945 and Dimension des Völkermords (Dimension of Genocide).Arthur Hertzberg is professor of Jewish Studies at New York University. He is the author of The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: A History (Columbia) and The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader.

Table of Contents

1. Talks Followed by Breakfast: The Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942
2. German Jews and National Socialism: Self-Image and Threat
3. Exclusion and Discrimination of the Jews in Germany, 1933–1939
4. Jewish Emigration, 1933–1941
5. Aryanization and the Jewish Star: German Jews Are Totally Stripped of Their Civil Rights, 1939–1941
6. Ghettos in Occupied Eastern Europe: The Beginning of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question
7. From Antisemitism to Genocide: The Genesis of the Final Solution
8. Massacre in the East: Einsatzgruppen and Other Killing, 1941–1942Units in the Occupied Territories
9. The Deportation of the Jews from Germany
10. Theresienstadt
11. The Other Genocide: The Persecution of the Sinti and Roma
12. Industrialized Mass Murder in the Extermination Camps, by 1942–1944

Editorial Reviews

A good, short history of the Holocaust.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

This will be an essay of choice for anyone wishing a sophisticated description of the major aspects of the genocide of the Jews.

Deborah E. Lipstadt

A good, short history of the Holocaust.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

A good, short history of the Holocaust.

Neue Zurcher Zeitung

[T]he book pulls no punches, is well written, and is thorough in its presentation.

— Samuel Totten

Canadian Social Studies Book Review

This will be an essay of choice for anyone wishing a sophisticated description of the major aspects of the genocide of the Jews.

— Deborah E. Lipstadt

Washington Post

An example of superb analysis.

Das Sonntagsblatt

By detailing the events that led Jews to be stripped of their rights, resettled in ghettos and deported to the killing centers, Benz's work provides and indisputable record of the Nazi genocide.

Hadassah Magazine

[T]he book pulls no punches, is well written, and is thorough in its presentation.

Canadian Social Studies Book Review - Samuel Totten