Documents on the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews in Germany and Austria, Poland and the Soviet Union by Yitzhak s> Arad Israel Gutman , Abraham Margaliot (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 55 I When the Finnish troops -under the political pressureof the Soviets moved into activewarfarefromthe beginning of October, the pressexpressed its indignation and stamped the Finnish policy as unworthy and treasonous. The criticism, however, was directed not against the nation but towards the Finnish leadership, which was said to have sold its people to the enemy. German propaganda still nursed hopes about Finnish pro-Nazi resistance, which proved to be entirelyunfounded. All in all, the Germans behaved in Finland in a civilized way, which was totally differentfrom their policies in the occupied countries. There was no terror or hostage-taking even during the Finnish-German Lapland War in 1944-45, although the Germans destroyed communications and other property very effectively. This exceptional story of a special relationship during World War II was also reflected in the press. Peltovuori'sbook is an interestingcontributionto the historyof the war and itspropagandafront. Renvall Institute TIMOVIHAVAINEN University ofHelsinki Arad, Yitzhak,Gutman, Israeland Margaliot,Abraham(eds).Documents onthe Holocaust. Selected Sources ontheDestruction oftheJews in Germany andAustria, PolandandtheSovietUnion.Eighth edition. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE and London, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, I999. xi + 475 pp. Index /38.oo; /i5.. APPEARING in its eighth edition, this book was firstpublished almost twenty years ago. It virtuallystood alone in I98I and for some years afterwards.As the historyof the Holocaust has advanced, so too has this book. Graduallya number of documents have been added to complement the increasingly sophisticatedunderstandingof the Holocaust. Most significantly,sourceshave been integratedthat allow readersto gain a sense ofJewish victims, speaking in their own voices, as opposed to focusing exclusively on the perpetrationof genocide. The main difference between this collection and similar effortsis that thisvolume is in English. In German, the compilationsof PeterKlein on the Einsatzgruppen in the occupied Soviet Union (I997), Konrad Kweit, WolfgangBenz, andJurgen Matthauson the Baltic nations and White Russia (1998), andWolfgangBenz andMarionNess on Lithuania(i 999) arecertainly helpful to scholars.But for students in the English-speakingworld, Documents ontheHolocaust is unsurpassedand remainsdistinctive. There are so many seminal documents in this varied collection that it is difficult to speak of some of them without doing injustice to the importance of others. Appropriately, the first entry is 'The Program of the National-Socialist [Nazi] German Workers' Party', which is followed by 'Anti-Jewish Plans of the Nazis Published Before Their Rise to Power'. One of the strengths of the selections is that the authors are not averse to demonstrating that there were inconsistencies in Nazi persecution, that it was not simply a linear, progressive march to the total destruction of Jewry. Hence, documents such as the 'Exchange of Letters Between Hindenburg and Hitler Concerning the Status ofJeNwsWho Served in the German Army' and 'Proposal by Frank for a Pause 552 SEER, 79, 3, 2001 in Anti-JewishAgitation', are criticalevidence of 'brakes'on the system(p. 8), while the overwhelming weight of persecution, and eventually total destruction , are unmistakeable. As importantas thisbook is, it might have been better. Steven T. Katz does not offer an especially appropriate introduction. 'The history of the Holocaust ', he begins, 'is encoded in a long and massive series of documents of many sorts, and from many sources. From Hitler's first writings on 'The Jewish Question' at the end of WorldWarI to his 'LastWill and Testament' at the end of World War II, a trail of written materials tells the tale of the intended murder of all of European Jewry' (p. v). Katz implies that these documents comprisea neat package,a whole that,takentogether,can be used to complete a puzzle. What is missing from his too brief essay is the fragmentarynature of much of the evidence, and the subtletyand knowledge needed to makesenseof the individualdocuments.In thisregardan important corrective is available only a few pages after Katz, in the editors' 'Foreword' in which they note that 'the Nazis were particularlyconcerned to execute the murdersin secret and not to leave tracesin writingof the destructionprocess. Officialdocuments make no referencein plain language to the extermination or itsvariousstages,usingaccepted code phrasesinstead'(p. 2). In additionto words that were meant to obscure atrocities, many lethal commands were never writtendown. But the 'traces'of genocide have been left in other ways, suchasthroughtestimoniesofperpetratorsand survivors,thephysicalremains...