Holocaust Research Research Articles

Holocaust Controversies in the 1990s: The Revenge of History or the History of Revenge?

During the 1990s it was often remarked that controversies about the persecution and mass murderof the Jews between 1933 and 1945 had acquired an unprecedented volume and vehemence. Indeed, the esca...

'Aryanisation' in Hamburg: the economic exclusion of Jews and the confiscation of their property in Nazi Germany

Much has been written about Nazi anti-Jewish policies, about atrocities of the Wehrmacht, and about the life of the Jews during the Third Reich. However, relatively little is known about the behavior of non-Jewish Germans. This book, published to wide acclaim in its original edition, shows how many ordinary Germans became involved in what they saw as a legally sanctioned process of ridding Germany and Europe of their Jews. Bajohr's study offers a major contribution to our understanding of this process in that it focusses on one of its most important aspects, namely the gradual exclusion of Jews from economic life in Hamburg, one of the largest centers of Jewish life in Europe and one in which many of them had been part of the Hanseatic patriciate before 1933. The sad conclusion of this study is that it was not necessarily antisemitism that motivated ordinary burghers but unrestrained greed that led them to betray their former co-citizens. Frank Bajohr is a historian at the Forschungsstelle fur Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg and lecturer at the Department of History at the University of Hamburg. At present he is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

Rethinking the Holocaust (review)

by Yehuda Bauer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. 335 pp. $29.95.Rethinking the Holocaust is not only a book on Holocaust history but also a meditation on the writing and implications of this history by one of its most influential interpreters, Yehuda Bauer. Bauer is the former director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research of Yad Vashem, Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the author of a dozen books in English on the destruction of European Jewry. Rethinking the Holocaust brings together several of Bauer's seminal essays, revised and reformulated for the collection (as Bauer writes in the preface, the process of preparing the book led him to rethink all [he] had ever written...rewrite...and write anew). The work is part historiographical survey, part intellectual autobiography.Bauer divides Rethinking the Holocaust into chapters that address specific themes and issues in Holocaust historiography, including the uniqueness of the Holocaust, the definition of resistance, the concept of God during the Holocaust, and the relationship between the destruction of European Jewry and the establishment of Israel. Bauer also devotes two chapters to specific Holocaust historians and the debates that they have inspired, including a lengthy discussion of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen and the controversy over Hitler's Willing Executioners. Several ideas arise repeatedly throughout the book's chapters, presenting the reader with a philosophy of Holocaust history-writing. First, Bauer stresses the need to examine Holocaust history from the Jewish perspective. He is critical of those who present the Holocaust only as a story of the perpetrators, calling instead for examination of Jewish responses to Nazi persecution and for synthetic histories which consider the Holocaust from a kaleidoscopic lens (Bauer holds up Saul Friedlander's Nazi Germany and the Jews as an exemplar of this method). Second, Bauer insists on the very humanness of those involved in the destruction of European Jewry, from the victims of Nazism to, more disturbingly, the Nazi perpetrators themselves. Regarding the latter, Bauer warns against demonizing the perpetrators and characterizing the Nazis as inhuman. Such descriptions shroud the Holocaust in mystery and put the event outside of history, obscuring the fact that the Holocaust was the result of human action, that it is explicable, and that it can (and has) happened in different permutations elsewhere. Third, and along these lines, Bauer argues that Holocaust history can have a political function by warning people of humankind's genocidal potential. Indeed, Bauer states that one of the aims of his book is to contribute to the work of those who would stop, even reverse, a murderous trend. Too many humans have been murdered, and the time has come to try and stop these waves that threaten to engulf us. …

Sources of Holocaust research: an analysis

Since the publication of his monumental Destruction of the European Jews forty years ago, Raul Hilberg has been the acknowledged master of Holocaust historians. In Sources of Holocaust Research he distills a lifetime of scholarly investigation into an indispensable primer on the use of sources in the writing of Holocaust history. It is not a manual or epistemological treatise, Mr. Hilberg advises, but an analysis of the types of materials, their composition, style, content, and usability. He goes on to describe, first, the exterior examination and classification of sources; next the interior view-the configuration, characteristic style, and highly selective content of the sources; and, finally, what may be extracted from them, considering the intrinsic problems of the material itself and the external conditions. Throughout Mr. Hilberg makes use of a rich fund of examples and anecdotes to illustrate his principles. The result is a book that anyone seriously interested in Holocaust research must have.

A MARKET FOR MASS CRIME? INTER-INSTITUTIONAL COMPETITION AND THE INITIATION OF THE HOLOCAUST IN FRANCE, 1940–1942

ABSTRACT Recent Holocaust research has emphasized the role of utilitarian rather than ideological motivation for the participation in organized mass crime. The relevant literature, however, does not address the ‘structure-agency’ issue which is how the overall organization of the persecution apparatuses was related to individual wrongdoing. Since the structure of Nazi rule was rather ‘polycratic’ than monolithic, the core-group of perpetrators had to share power and resources with a variety of actors. The planners of the ‘final solution’ could not always rely on a hierarchical chain of command nor on anti-Semitism as a coordinating source of compliance under. Did the absence of monopoly in terms of power and resources create a market-style incentive structure at least as effective as coordination by hierarchy and ideology? Based on recent documentary and scholarly work on the looting of Jewish property in Vichy France, this paper presents evidence both supporting and challenging a related hypothesis. Comp...

CONFRONTING THE JEWISH RESPONSE DURING THE HOLOCAUST:YAD VASHEM-- A COMMEMORATIVE AND A RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN THE 1950S

The Remembrance Memorial Authority, Yad Vashem, officially began to function in Jerusalem in December 1953. Five months earlier the Knesset had passed special legislation that mandated its activities.1 In its early years and throughout the 1950s, the national commemorative authority dealt with the organization of its various departments and the development of its policy. These were the years of finding their way, of attempting to delineate the form of the national memorial in compliance with the Yad Vashem Law. Implementing the provisions of the law meant confronting questions of principle, and, not unexpectedly, significantly different points of view appeared among the prominent figures who were trying to shape the commemorative foundation in its early years. Conflicting ideologies concerning the institution’s mission were expressed in meetings of the directorate as well as in the conferences of the World Council of Yad Vashem, the highest communal body of the memorial foundation. The focal point of these differences was the possible contradiction between the two goals set for Yad Vashem by the legislature. Was it feasible for an institution to fulfill a national objective of commemoration and at the same time to serve as an independent Holocaust research center, disinterested and based on scientific principles? This basic issue arose throughout the fifties in discussions inside the halls of the institution and among the well-known personalities and organizations concerned with the operation of Yad Vashem. In 1960 international jurist Jacob Robinson prepared a special report for the Conference on Material Claims against Germany. Robinson, who was in touch with the directorate of Yad Vashem and had closely followed its operations in the fifties, noted a serious claim that the operational difficulties of Yad Vashem resulted from its commitment to contradictory aims: “the institution apparently fulfilled both the role of a research center and the preserver of the national memo-

“You Said the Words You Wanted Me to Hear But I Heard the Words You Couldn't Bring Yourself to Say”: Women's First Person Accounts of the Holocaust

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJudith Tydor BaumelDr. Judith Tydor Baumel teaches at the department of Jewish History and is a researcher at the Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She specializes in twentieth century Jewish history with emphasis on the Holocaust, the State of Israel, and Gender and Memory. Her latest book is Double Jeopardy: Gender and the Holocaust (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1998).

Academic and Public Discourses on the Holocaust: The Goldhagen Debate in Germany

Over two years after the appearance of Hitler’s Willing Executioners,very little can be heard about the so-called Goldhagen Debate inGermany: no more scholarly reviews, at most a few echoes here andthere. Over two hundred thousand copies of the book were sold,and it was certainly read almost as many times. But it does notappear in the syllabi of university courses on the Holocaust, exceptperhaps in those that cover historiographical debates. In the Germanedition of Saul Friedländer’s new book, Nazi Germany and the Jews,Daniel Goldhagen does not rate a mention, except for a three linefootnote on page 420 in which his theory is described as “unconvincingon the basis of the materials presented as part of the study.”2Goldhagen’s book, one can confidently predict, will not play a rolein future Holocaust research.

Public Opinion About Comparisons to the Holocaust

Holocaust and genocide researchers are engaged in a vigorous debate concerning the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the appropriateness of comparing this event to others. They concur, however, in criticizing comparisons to the Holocaust made by activ- ists, characterizing these comparisons as carelessly reasoned and self-interested. We use a U.S. national survey to identify which com- parisons to the Holocaust are most salient to the public. Further, we test hypotheses about possible motivations or predictors of various comparisons, including influences of education and gender on ways of knowing, effects of race and political orientation on ethnoracial comparisons, and generational differences in collective memory. We conclude that public comparisons to the Holocaust are in concor- dance with elements of the United Nations' definition of genocide. Comparisons to the Holocaust are best predicted by education, gen- der, race, and current events. These findings have important implica- tions for Holocaust pedagogy and for our understanding of the pub- lic's role in the construction of historical accounts.

Structure and Agency in the Holocaust: Daniel J. Goldhagen and His Critics

A striking aspect of the so‐called “Goldhagen debate” hasbeen the bifurcated reception Hitler's Willing Executioners hasreceived: the enthusiastic welcome of journalists and the public was as warm as the impatientdismissal of most historians was cool. This article seeks to transcend the current impasse byanalyzing the underlying issues of Holocaust research at stake here. It argues that a “deepstructure” necessarily characterizes the historiography of the Holocaust, comprising atension between its positioning in “univeralism” and“particularism” narratives. While the former conceptualizes the Holocaust as anabstract human tragedy and explains its occurrence in terms of processes common to modernsocieties, the latter casts its analysis in ethnic and national categories: the Holocaust as anexclusively German and Jewish affair. These narratives possess important implications for thebalance of structure and human agency in the explanation of the Holocaust: where theuniversalism narrative emphasizes the role of impersonal structures in mediating human action,the particularism narrative highlights the agency of human actors. Although historical accountsusually combine these narratives, recent research on the Holocaust tends in the universalistdirection, and this bears on the sensitive issue of responsibility for the Holocaust byproblematizing the common‐sense notion of the perpetrators' intention and responsibility.Goldhagen is responding to this trend, but by retreating to the particularism narrative andemploying an inadequate definition of intention, he fails to move the debate forward. It is time torethink the concept of intention in relation to events like the Holocaust.

Comparative Genocide Studies and the Future Directions of Holocaust Research

Comparative Genocide Studies and the Future Directions of Holocaust Research

The Center for Research on Antisemitism in Berlin: Purposes and Primary Research Foci

88 SHOFAR Summer 1997 Vol. IS, No.4 The Center for Research on Antisemitism in Berlin: Purposes and Primary Research Foci* Wolfgang Benz Wolfgang Benz studied at the universities in Frankfurt am Main, Kiel, and Munich. From 1969 until 1990 he taught at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. Since 1990 he has been professor at the Technical University of Berlin and director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism. He is the editor of a number ofmonograph series and the author or editor of more than fourteen books. His most recent publications include: Deutscher Widerstand 1933-1945 (1994); Der Holocaust (1995); Antisemitismus in Deutschland: Zur Aktualitiit eines Vorurteils (editor, 1995). The Center for Research on Antisemitism of the Technical University of Berlin, founded in 1982, is the only establishment of its kind in Europe. The Center's underlying interdisciplinary research on antisemitism has been complemented by adjacent emphases on German-Jewish history and Holocaust research. Although bound up with academic instruction, the Center for Research on Antisemitism is to a large extent also a public institution that extends beyond the parameters of a university institute to service and enlighten the more general public. Because of its long existence and its multi-faceted appearances, antisemitism can serve as the paradigm for the research of social prejudice and group conflict. With the present world-wide migration process and with the new formation of societies with large ethnic minorities in Europe many conflicts and problem areas that we recognize from the history ofthe coexistence ofJews and Gentiles have been structurally repeated. The Center for Research on Antisemitism cannot, therefore, confme itself to the narrower topic of antisemitism, rather it understands itself much more as a central institution for the general and growing theoretical and methodological research on prejudice, discrimination, migration processes and minority conflicts, and the history ofdiscriminated-against minorities. The concept of antisemitism must be expanded in the sense ofa research strategy and be applied to phenomena that extend from minority conflicts to political extremism, as they are, at the moment, manifest in animosity toward strangers and in the hatred of foreigners. Real problems such as xenophobia and racism demand answers that are based on research. The opening ofthe borders of Europe make it possible and necessary to look toward the East, where old structures ofprejudice fmd new foolish soil in situations of 'Translated by Dean Phillip Bell Centerfor Research on Antisemitism in Berlin 89 real crisis. The conference on Judenfeindschaft [hostility towards Jews] organized by the Center in December of 1994 in Lettland, for example, was comprised of colloquia addressing actual problems of antisemitism in Lithuania and other states of eastern Europe. Tracking with empirical methods of the social sciences the real trends in the consciousness and in the political behavior of German antisemitism, antagonism towards strangers, and extremism is an important area of the Center's work. Holocaust research will also have an important place in the future of the Center for Research on Antisemitism. One recent project was devoted to the topic of solidarity and assistance for Jews between 1933 and 1945. The results ofthat project were published in collected volumes, the frrst ofwhich appeared early in 1996 with regional studies extending from Norway to Greece. The contact of non-Jews and Jews within the German-dominated area is described within these volumes. Fresh ground in the area of German-Jewish history was broken in a project to document and analyze Yiddish periodicals that appeared in Berlin in the early twentieth century. The image of Jews in the popular press of the second half of the nineteenth century was the focus of a folkloristic and art-historical project. In addition to the Jahrbuch fir Antisemitismusforschung [Yearbook for Research on Antisemitism] (Campus Verlag FrankfurtlNew York) the Center also publishes other series of books (by Campus and in Metropol Verlag Berlin), including a series "Lebensbilder-jiidische Erinnerungen und Zeugnisse" [Portraits of Jewish Life: Reminiscences and Testimonies] in Fischer Paperback publications.2 A series ofvideo and audio reports devoted to the survivors of the Holocaust have appeared since 1995 entitled "Erinnern als Vermachtnis" [Remembrance as Legacy]. The purpose ofthe series is to clarify important themes in exemplary personal records. Each...

Multi-Media Resources for Holocaust Research and Teaching

Multi-Media Resources for Holocaust Research and Teaching

Nathaniel Katzburg. <italic>Hungary and the Jews: Policy and Legislation, 1920–1943</italic>. (Publications of the Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar-Ilan University.) Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press. 1981. Pp. 299

Nathaniel Katzburg. Hungary and the Jews: Policy and Legislation, 1920–1943. (Publications of the Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar-Ilan University.) Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press. 1981. Pp. 299 Get access Katzburg Nathaniel. Hungary and the Jews: Policy and Legislation, 1920–1943. (Publications of the Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar-Ilan University.) Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press. 1981. Pp. 299. William M. Batkay William M. Batkay Montclair State College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 89, Issue 1, February 1984, Page 166, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/89.1.166 Published: 01 February 1984

Comments on Weisberg's "Avoiding Central Realities" and Richards' "Terror and the Law"

The two excellent papers presented here open up the conceptual and methodological boundaries of Holocaust research in a manner that will enable scholars to gain a quite different perspective on that tragic event. At the same time the papers, presumably unintentionally, also share a number of explicit and implicit assumptions that make comparison particularly rewarding. At the outset it may be useful to underscore a number of the historiographic assumptions with which both authors work; otherwise, they may be overlooked in the context of their often very sophisticated arguments. To begin with, Professors Weisberg and Richards do not take the Holocaust as an historic event that should be studied solely in terms of the politics and mechanics of the killing operations. Rather, both authors set the Holocaust in a much wider societal context, essentially asking why did German and European society permit the Holocaust to happen? Implicit in that question, of course, is the assumption of an ideal societal paradigm in which horrors such as the Holocaust would (and could) not occur. The two papers also stretch the methodological and chronological boundaries of research on the Holocaust. Chronologically, Professor Weisberg asks us to go far beyond the Great Depression or even the origins of World War I to search for the antecedents of the Holocaust mentality, while methodologically he turns to literature to illuminate the cause of the Holocaust. Professor Richards looks to the centuries-old legal positivist tradition in Europe to explain the failure of intellectuals to oppose the outrages of the Nazi period. Finally, the two authors share a refreshing outlook on what might be called the moral imperative of historical experience. Unlike most jaded historians, including the present speaker, Professors Weisberg and Richards

The First German Church Faces the Challenge of the Holocaust: A Report

After 20 years of discussion about the relationship of Christians and Jews, caused by the reflection of the Holo caust, the Evangelische Kirche im Rheinland, regional church of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, has passed a resolution. It states the responsibility of Christianity for the Holocaust, the everlasting election of Israel as the people of God, and the common vocation of Jews and Christians to be witnesses of God to the world and to each other; it refutes the opinion that the Jewish people have been rejected by God and accordingly have been substituted by the church; and it stresses the impossibility of Judenmission. Furthermore, the synod demands better information on Judaism and wishes to build up a new partnership between Jews and Christians. First impulses in this direction came from the Reformed churches of the Netherlands and from the Deutsche evan gelische Kirchentag in Berlin, 1961. Since then, many Jewish teachers have helped the Evangelische Kirche im Rheinland to reach a new understanding of Judaism and of the Christian guilt for the Holocaust. The American Holocaust research has vastly affected German theologians, one of whom, Eber hard Bethge, has composed thesis I for the committee "Christians and Jews" of the Landessynode, thereby pre paring the resolution aforementioned.