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Annotated Bibliography I:
General and Specialized History
1. General History
1. General History
Berenbaum, Michael, ed. A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered bythe Nazis. New York: New York University Press, 1990.
This collection of essays includes entries by a number of noted Holocaust scholars including Berenbaum himself. The subjects of the essays includes entries by a number of noted Holocaust scholars, such as homosexuals and Gypsies, Serbs,Slavs, and pacifists.
Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: A History of the Holocaust as Told inthe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Boston: Little Brown, 1993.
As indicated by the title, the book tells the story of the Holocaust as presented in the museum. It includes over 200 photos from the museum s archives and artifact collections. The three parts of the book, which correspond to the accounts from the main exhibition floors, cover the rise of the Nazis to power;the ghettos and camps; and rescue, resistance, and the post-war period.
Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. New York: Bantam, 1986.
Dawidowicz raises three questions: How was it possible for a modern state to carry out the systematic murder of a people for no reason other than that theywere Jewish? How did European Jewry allow itself to be destroyed? How could the world stand by without halting this destruction? In Dawidowicz’s view, World War II was the direct result of Hitler’s antisemitism; she believes the war was waged to allow the Nazis to implement the Final Solution. Her work is a major exposition of the intentionalist school of Holocaust historiography. According to Dawidowicz, the annihilation of the Jews was central to Hitler s thoughts and plans from 1919 onward.
Dawidowicz, Lucy. A Holocaust Reader. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, 1976.
A companion to the historical work cited above, here Dawidowicz presentsdocumentation to support the history. Both German and Jewish documents are provided, including reports, letters, and diaries. The general introduction to studying Holocaust documents, and the introductions to each section of document sare extremely helpful.
Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews in Europe during the Second World War. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1986.
Gilbert effectively combines the results of historical research with personal narratives of survivors. Although the book is long, it is readable and extremely well-indexed, making it an invaluable tool for providing supplementary material on almost any aspect of the Holocaust. What it may lack by way of analysis, itmore than makes up in texture and its conveyance of the emotional power of theHolocaust.
Hayes, Peter, ed. Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust in aChanging World. Evanston, IL: Northwestem University Press, 1991.
In this useful collection thoughtfully introduced by Hayes, various aspects of the Holocaust are examined by sixteen leading scholars including Raul Hilberg,Saul Friedlander, Yehuda Bauer, Michael Marrus, Christopher Browning, and Lawrence Langer. Also included is a critical essay by Alvin Rosenfeld on thepopularization of Anne Frank.
Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. [3 vols.] New York: Holmesand Meier, 1985.
This authoritative reconstruction of the Holocaust remains the standard text to which all others are compared. Hilberg s primary focus is on the methods of the Nazi murder process, including the organizational and bureaucratic machinery ofdestruction. Hilberg s explanation of the role of Jews themselves in theirdestruction and of the lack of resistance has been criticized.
Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. [Student text]. New York:Holmes and Meier, 1985.
This edition of Hilberg’s classic work is an abridgement of the original three-volume edition. The focus here is on the perpetrators and the destruction process from expropriation of the Jews property to the camps.
Hilberg, Raul. Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe,1933-1945. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.
In his most recent work, Hilberg expands his focus from the study of the perpetrator alone, to include, as the title indicates, victims and bystanders. He also includes rescuers and Jewish resisters, groups which he ignored in his earlier work; however, the attention he gives to these groups is minimal. His main focus continues to be on the destruction and those responsible for it.Hitler’s role is more central here than in the earlier work. This is Hilberg’smost accessible book.
Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Nazi Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945.Melbourne, FL: Krieger Publishing Company, 1990.
Levin was one of the first writers to use the term Holocaust for the destruction of the Jews of Europe during World War II. The first part of this historical account, arranged chronologically, details the Nazi plan and implementation of the Final Solution. The second half, arranged geographically, shows how the Naziprogram was affected by individual governments and by degrees of antisemitism.Levin emphasizes the resistance of the Jews and rejects the notion that they wentto their deaths like sheep to the slaughter.
Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution. Norvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1988.
Updated since first being published in 1953, this work is remarkable for theearly understanding it provided of the Holocaust. Much of what Reitlinger wrote less than a decade after the Holocaust has been confirmed by subsequent research.
Yahil, Leni. The HoIocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945. New York Oxford, 1991.
This is one of the most comprehensive histories of the Holocaust. Written by a fine scholar late in her career, it is built on the strong foundation of her earlier two works and a generation of solid research. Yahil demonstrates how theNazis used the anti-Jewish program from the beginning to reinforce their power.Before the war, their deliberate violence against the Jews of Germany helped to terrorize the rest of the country, and during the war, their anti-Jewish policies were used as an excuse for taking control of the governments of satellites and occupied countries.
2. History, Specialized
Allen, William S. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single GermanTown, 1922-1945. Revised edition. New York: Franklin Watts, 1984.
Northeim, a small town of medieval origins in the center of prewar Germany, is the setting for this absorbing study of the impact of Nazism on a singlecommunity. As one of the only detailed local studies of Nazi Germany available in English. This book is an invaluable complement to histories of Nazism from thenational perspective.
Bartoszewski, Wladyslaw T. The Warsaw Ghetto: A Christian’s Testimony. Boston:Beacon Press, 1988.
The author is a Polish historian and journalist, born in Warsaw in 1922, now a retired professor of Catholic University in Lublin. He returned to Warsaw from Auschwitz in 1941 and served as liaison between the Polish underground and Jewish ghetto leadership. In this work he intermingles his personal story with primary source material from Nazi, resistance, and ghetto documents.
Bauer, Yehuda and Nathan Rotenstreich, eds. The Holocaust as HistoricalExperience. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981.
This collection of essays was specifically designed for teacher. It is divided into three sections, dealing with background, case studies and witnesses, and responses by Jews. The essays cover a variety of ways of approaching theHolocaust, and the work helps to set a framework for historical research.
Bridenthal, Renate, et. al. When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and NaziGermany. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984.
Claudia Koonz and Sybil Milton are among the authors included in this collection of essays dealing with a variety of topics and issues relating to women and families in Germany in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Politics, feminism, and antisemitism are among the subjects addressed.
Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solutionin Poland. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.
In this compelling, pioneering social history, Browning attempts to explain how ordinary, middle-aged men became mass murderers, personally shooting thousands ofmen, women, and children in occupied Poland where the reservists served asmembers of the German Order Police. The author draws on the judicialinterrogations of 210 men who provided testimony in the 1960s, regarding theirparticipation in the massacres and roundups of Jews in 1942 and 1943.
Burleigh, Michael and Wolfgang Wipperman. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Between 1933 and 1945 the Nazi regime tried to restructure German society alongracial lines. This important, scholarly study shows how the Nazis plan toannihilate European Jewry derived from racial and population policies which alsotargeted the Sinti and Roma (Gypsies), the mentally and physically handicapped,the asocial, and homosexuals.
Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1984.
In addition to the detailed history of the Nuremberg Trials. Conot discusses thepreparations for the trials. He also goes beyond the events of the trialsthemselves to discuss the difficulties involved in creating and implementing aninternational legal entity.
Des Pres, Terrence. The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Des Pres studies survivors of the death camps in an attempt to determine what enabled people to survive. His conclusions are controversial and are unlike thoseof Bettelheim (The Informed Heart), Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning), and otherHolocaust scholars.
Dobroszycki, Lucjan, ed. The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
Himself a survivor of the Lodz ghetto, Dobroszycki introduces and analyzes thedetailed records kept by Lodz archivists. He includes material about the ghetto scontroversial leader, Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski.
Dwork, Deborah. Children with a Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1991.
This detailed study of Jewish children during the Holocaust is based on archival material and survivor interviews. Focusing on the daily life of children, the book includes a variety of experiences: children at home, in hiding, and in transit camps, ghettos, forced labor camps, and killing centers.
Engelman, Bernt. In Hitler’s Germany. New York: Schocken, 1988.
Engelman, a German raised in an anti-Nazi home, tells his own story here along with those of other Germans, both for and against the Nazis. He also includes those who resisted and those who were indifferent to or unaware of the events around them. This is a social history, focusing on everyday life.
Epstein, Helen. Children of the Holocaust. New York: Viking Penguin, 1988.
Epstein, who is a daughter of survivors, interviewed many other children of survivors and presents here a wide range of their responses. She integrates herown story into the text and deals with the issues raised by both parents andchildren.
Evans, Richard. In Hitler’s Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt toEscape from the Nazi Past. New York: Pantheon, 1989.
This noted British historian examines the world of West German historians and the controversial attempts to diminish Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust. Some of their arguments resemble those used by the Nazis themselves. Evans distinguishes between individual and collective guilt, and discusses President Ronald Reagan and the Bitburg Cemetery visit.
Fein, Helen. Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimizationduring the Holocaust. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
After examining the nature and causes of genocide and the history ofantisemitism, Fein addresses the varying patterns of genocide in countries duringthe Holocaust and the way those differences were influenced by each nation shistory and culture. After looking at these events from the broad historical perspective, she takes a second look from the perspective of the victim.
Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and theHolocaust, 1938-1945. New York: Schocken, 1980.
This evenhanded, scholarly study examines the reaction of the Roosevelt Administration to the Holocaust. Feingold attempts to move beyond a moral condemnation of American inaction to examine the political context which shaped the American response. The main focus is on American and international refugee policy from the Evian Conference in 1938 to the creation of the War Refugee Board in 1944.
Gellately, Robert. The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1992.
In this original, scholarly study of the Nazi secret police, Gellately combinesadministrative and social history. He draws extensively on Gestapo case files toshow that the key factor in the en- forcement of Nazi racial policy designed toisolate Jews was the willingness of German citizens to provide the authoritieswith information about suspected criminality. The author includes a chapter onracial policy aimed at Polish foreign workers.
Herzstein, Robert. The War that Hitler Won: Goebbels and the Nazi Media Campaign.New York: Paragon House, 1978.
The author illustrates the power of propaganda and the effective manipulation of mass media by focusing on the work of Goebbels and the effect of that work on theGerman people.
Horwitz, Gordon. ln the Shadow of Death: Living Outside the Gates of Mauthausen.New York: The Free Press, 1990.
How much did people living near the camps know about what was going on? How did they cope with this knowledge? How did they find out? These and similar questions are raised in this very readable book on the complicity of bystanders in the Holocaust.
Kamenetsky, Christa. Children’s Literature ln Hitler’s Germany: The CulturalPolicy of National Socialism. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1986.
Not only was new literature created to support the Nazi philosophy, but old literature, including traditional folklore, was adapted to reflect Nazi principles. Kamenetsky discusses this aspect of the Nazi attempt to control what children read, and also looks at censorship, school reform, and control of libraries and publishers.
Klee, Emst, et. al., eds. The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by ItsPerpetrators and Bystanders. New York: Free Press, 1991.
Originally published in Germany in 1988, this work is made up of letters,diaries, reports, photo- graphs, and other documents, some of which were kept inscrapbooks and albums by people like concentration camp guards, SS officers, andother perpetrators and sympathetic observers of the Holocaust.
Koonz, Claudia. Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics.New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
A history of the women s movement in Germany from the Weimar Republic to the Naziera. This work emphasizes the role of women in Nazi Germany and the impact of Nazism on the family unit. Koonz also includes material on the influence of the church in defining women s roles, on female members of the resistance, and on Jewish women.
Langer, Lawrence L. Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1991.
After looking at hundreds of video interviews with Holocaust survivors, Langernotes the characteristics that distinguish oral testimony from the more traditional written form. These distinctions influence both the survivor and the viewer of video testimonies; they also provide a different perspective on survival theories.
Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth andMemory. New York: The Free Press, 1993.
Lipstadt does not refute the deniers of the Holocaust point by point (although she offers a useful appendix addressing some of their specific charges). Instead she provides an overview of the main figures promoting denial in the U.S. and abroad, their motives, their methods, and an assessment of their impact on college campuses and wider public opinion.
Lipstadt, Deborah. Beyond Belief: The American Press & the Coming of theHolocaust 1933-1945. New York: The Free Press, 1986.
Why did one of every three Americans polled in 1943 dismiss as propaganda reportsof atrocities against European Jews? Why were reports given by Auschwitz escapeesin 1944 viewed with skepticism by major newspapers? Lipstadt raises these questions and others in this book on how the American news media reported (or ignored) the Nazi persecution and genocide of European Jewry.
Lukas, Richard C. The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation,1939-1944. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986.
The Nazis viewed Poles as subhumans, occupying lands vital to Germany. After Germany conquered Poland in 1939, the Nazis expelled Poles from whole regions and resettled the land with Germans. Many Polish civilians were murdered, including thousands of priests, teachers, writers, and other intellectual and political leaders. Lukas documents the Polish suffering through interviews, Polish archival material, and published sources.
Mandell, Richard. The Nazi Olympics. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press,1988.
The 1936 Olympics became a political event as much as an athletic one. Mandell,himself a German, chronicles both aspects and discusses the importance of theNazi use of pageantry.
Marrus, Michael. The Holocaust in History. New York: New American Library/Duton,1989.
In this intelligent and succinct evaluation of historical accounts of theHolocaust, Marrus looks at a variety of issues: antisemitism, collaboration,resistance, and others. He presents the interpretations of leading historians inthese areas and points out the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments. At notimes does he allow this to become an intellectual exercise; instead, he issearching for better understanding.
Mayer, Milton. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45. Chicago:University of Chicago Press. 1966.
After the war, this American journalist interviewed ten men of differentbackgrounds from the same German town in an effort to determine through theireyes what had happened in Germany and what had made it possible. This is anexcellent companion to Allen s Nazi Seizure of Power.
Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. NewYork: Overlook Press. 1985.
The term American apathy, which Morse uses in his title refers less to theAmerican public than to the United States government. Using primary sourcematerials, Morse details the process by which the government responded, or failedto respond, to the Nazi genocide.
Mosse, George. Nazi Culture: A Documentary History. New York: Schochen, 1981.
While primarily an anthology of original source material, Mosse includes alengthy personal introduction, as well as introductions to each section andselection. Selections include material taken from speeches, newspapers,contemporary literature, and diaries.
Noakes, J. and G. Pridham, eds. Nazism: A History in Documents and EyewitnessAccounts, 1919-1945 [2 vols.] New York: Schochen, 1990.
This comprehensive work includes a wide range of official, government and partydocuments, newspapers, speeches, memoirs, letters and diaries. The first volumecovers the Nazis rise to power and the domestic aspects of their regime from 1933to 1939. Volume two examines foreign policy in the pre-war and war periods, theoccupation of Poland, the euthanasia program, and the implementation of thegenocide policies.
Plant, Richard. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals. 1st ed. NewYork: Henry Holt, 1986.
The Nazis condemned homosexuals as socially aberrant. Soon after Hitler came topower in 1933, Storm Troopers raided nightclubs and other places wherehomosexuals met. About 10,000 people were imprisoned as homosexuals, and many ofthem perished in concentration camps. In the camps, homosexuals uniformssometimes bore a pink triangular badge as an identifying mark. In this volume,the first comprehensive study available in English, Plant examines theideological motivations for the Nazi persecution of homosexuals and the historyof the implementation of Nazi policies.
Roth, John K. and Michael Berenbaum, eds. The Holocaust: Religious andPhilosophical Implications. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
In this useful collection of over twenty, previously published essays by many ofthe leading Holocaust scholars, the writers offer a range of responses todifficult questions concerning the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the impact ofthe catastrophe on Jewish religious beliefs.
Rubenstein, Richard L. The Cunning of History. New York: Harper Collins, 1987.
This slim volume is less a history of the Holocaust than an extended essay thatattempts to put the Holocaust into historical perspective. Rubenstein s originalbut controversial tenet essentially describes the Holocaust as the culmination oftwentieth-century technology and bureaucracy.
Rubenstein, Richard L., and John Roth. Approaches to Auschwitz. Atlanta: JohnKnox, 1987.
A Multidisciplinary study of the Holocaust combining history and politicalscience, sociology, psychology, literature, and theology. This work is bothcomprehensive and insightful, a fine introduction for a beginning student of theHolocaust.
Tec, Nechama. When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews inNazi-Occupied Poland. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Tec studied those who risked their lives to save Jews in an attempt to find asociological pattern, to determine what characteristics these people had incommon, whether they were related by class, religion, or other factors.
Telford, Taylor. The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir. NewYork: Knopf, 1992.
Telford Taylor was a member of the American prosecution staff at the Nuremberg trials and eventually became chief counsel. This is a detailed, fascinating account of the inner workings of the trials and the behavior of the defendants and many other participants, both inside and outside the courtroom.
Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews. New York: Pantheon, 1986.
Wyman asks and answers the basic questions about how much was known in America about the Final Solution. In addition to his criticism of the official response from theUnited States government, in general, and from President Roosevelt, in particular, Wyman also indicts some of the American Zionist leaders.
