The Life and Death of the Shtetl

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the contributions and limitations of Yehuda Bauer's 2009 book The Death of the Shtetl. It argues that the book heralded a new trend in Holocaust historiography by focusing on the eastern borderlands and closely observing the response of a limited number Jewish communities there to the German occupation, especially as concerns “amidah,” or unarmed resistance. But the article also points out that Bauer's limited use of available sources obscured the degree of Jewish collaboration with the Germans; the fluidity between Jewish policemen and resisters; the reliance of Jewish resistance on local Christian assistance or underground organizations; the impact on events of long-term relations between the different groups in a highly interethnic region; and the intimacy of the mass murder of the Jews, which was carried out by German perpetrators who had gotten to know their victims over months of occupation and by neighbors who had lived side by side with them for their entire lives. The article argues that a more focused and nuanced local history of the Holocaust in a single location can shed light on aspects of the “final solution” often obscured by top-down histories or even “quasi-regional” histories such as Bauer's.