HOLOCAUST

Hebrew Sho'ah, Yiddish and Hebrew Hurban (Destruction) the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this the final solution to the Jewish question. The word Holocaust is derived from the Greek holokauston, a translation of the Hebrew word 'olah, meaning a burnt sacrifice offered whole to God. This word was chosen because in the ultimate manifestation of the Nazi killing programthe extermination campsthe bodies of the victims were consumed whole in crematoria and open fires. Michael Berenbaum Additional reading General references and histories Israel Gutman (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vol. (1990, reissued 4 vol. in 2, 1995), is a comprehensive and authoritative reference work. A useful reference on the geographic extent of the Holocaust is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Historical Atlas of the Holocaust (1996). Michael Berenbaum (ed.), Witness to the Holocaust (1997), contains 94 basic documents on 21 major themes, from the Nazi rise to power to the Nrnberg trials. Michael R. Marrus, The Holocaust In History (1987, reissued 1989), offers insights on a variety of historical debates surrounding the Holocaust. Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (1993) is a non-technical, illustrated history of the Holocaust. Other general histories of the Holocaust include Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (1986); Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, rev. and definitive ed., 3 vol. (1985); Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 193245 (1990; originally published in Hebrew, 1987); and Saul Friedlnder, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. 1, The Years of Persecution, 193339 (1997), the first of two planned volumes. The perpetrators For first-hand accounts of the Holocaust from the viewpoint of perpetrators and bystanders, see Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess (eds.), The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders, trans. from German (1991; also published as Those Were the Days: The Holocaust through the Eyes of the Perpetrators and Bystanders, 1993). Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust (1979, reprinted 1984), presents a sociological account of genocide and the social forces that make it possible. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996), is a controversial work exploring the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany and the complicity of ordinary Germans in the Holocaust. For an account of the human impact of the killing process in one Einsatzgruppe, see Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (1992, reissued 1998). Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (1995), traces the development of genocidal policies and techniques in the Nazi T4 Program. Gitta Sereny, Into that Darkness (1974, reprinted 1991), offers a chilling account of prison interviews with Franz Stangl, commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka and a product of the German T4 camps. Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (1986), explores the role and psychology of Nazi physicians. Biographies of Nazi architects of the Holocaust include Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (1991), and Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, completely rev. ed. (1962, reissued 1995), also published in an abridged ed. with the same title (1971, reissued 1991). John Lukacs, The Hitler of History (1997), is less a biography of Hitler and more a review of the way in which historians have treated him. The victims Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Council in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation (1972, reissued 1996), describes the dilemma facing the Jewish Councils in the ghettos in their efforts to reconcile Jewish needs with Nazi demands. For an account of ghetto life and Jewish resistance to German aggression, see Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, 19331945, 10th anniversary ed. (1986, reissued 1990). Yisrael Gutman (Israel Gutman) and Michael Berenbaum (eds.), Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (1994, reissued 1998), a collection of essays, considers Auschwitz in context, each of its victim groups, and the inner life of both perpetrators and victims. Terrence Des Pres, The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps (1976, reissued 1980), considers the experience of extermination camp inmates from a psychological viewpoint. Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory (1991) explores the power of Holocaust survivors' testimonies and memories of their experience. Important firsthand accounts by Holocaust survivors include Primo Levi, If This Is a Man (1959; originally published in Italian, 1947; also published as Survival in Auschwitz, 1961, reissued 1996), and Elie Wiesel, Night (1960, reissued 1986; originally published in Yiddish, 1956). Special topics Edited volumes containing essays on different aspects of the Holocaust include John K. Roth and Michael Berenbaum (eds.), The Holocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications (1989), on religious and philosophical issues related to the Holocaust; Lawrence L. Langer (ed.), Art from the Ashes (1995), presenting art and literature on the Holocaust; Carol Rittner and John K. Roth (eds.), Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust (1993), on the issue of gender and women's experience of the Holocaust. Works on U.S. government policy on the Holocaust include Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 19381945, expanded and updated ed. (1980), a careful historical review; and David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews (1984, reissued 1998), a more critical indictment. Tim Cole, Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler, How History Is Bought, Packaged, and Sold (1999); and Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflection on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2000), deal with what some people see as the commercialization of Holocaust remembrance.