Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Bantam (1986), Edition: 10th Anniversary ed., 467 pages
Description
A history of how anti-Semitism evolved into the Holocaust in Germany: "If any book can tell what Hitlerism was like, this is it" (Alfred Kazin). Lucy Dawidowicz's groundbreaking The War Against the Jews inspired waves of both acclaim and controversy upon its release in 1975. Dawidowicz argues that genocide was, to the Nazis, as central a war goal as conquering Europe, and was made possible by a combination of political, social, and technological factors. She explores the full history of Hitler's "Final Solution," from the rise of anti-Semitism to the creation of Jewish ghettos to the brutal tactics of mass murder employed by the Nazis. Written with devastating detail, The War Against the Jews is the definitive and comprehensive book on one of history's darkest chapters.… (more)
Awards
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (Nonfiction — 1976)
Notable Books List (1975)
Language
User reviews
LibraryThing member neddludd
The author divides her work into two parts: the first focuses on the Nazis and is fascinating in the same way that a poisonous viper demands your attention. With impeccable and overwhelming research one sees that National Socialism was an outgrowth of centuries of German reaction to liberalism. She
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argues that the growth of a mythical "Volk" that mixes Teutonic mythology, reactionary ideology, and anti-Semitism stems from resistance to Napoleon's imposition on the fractured German states of French concepts of freedom and equality. Hitler then added a personal obsessional hatred of Jews that borrowed descriptions of them as "vermin" and "bacteria." He globalized the threat he saw posed by the Jews by conflataing Bolshevism and Judaism, with which justified his attack on Russia. The author makes the point that Hitler's spewing in Mein Kampf in the mid-1920s was an accurate forecast of his domestic and foreign policy. It's fascinating, well-written, and repulsive, as the entire Volk takes pride in how many Jews were extirminated. The second half of the book though, which concentrates on how the Jews reacted to the mortal threat upon them I found too pedantic and masochistic. As members of various Jewish organizations in Germany debated doctrinal issues, the Nazis were preparing to kill them all. It reminds me of the Woody Allen line about talking to a Nazi only with a baseball bat. However, the Jews didn't use weapons; they deluded themselves into thinking that rational arguments would win the day. I couldn't read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member JBD1
A classic historical account of the Holocaust, its origins, the response, etc.
LibraryThing member J.v.d.A.
Very comprehensive and detailed account of the Holocaust.
LibraryThing member markm2315
An idiosyncratic one volume history of the holocaust. I had avoided it previously, but recently read something that gave it a plug (I don't remember what). Somewhat notorious for the negative review by Raul Hilberg author of the multivolume Destruction of the European Jews. The holocaust, being
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what it was, involving who it involved, being associated with so much guilt in the survivors and being followed by the creation of Israel, seems to commonly have its histories fairly thoroughly criticized (there's a sentence for you). This book is sort of the anti-Hilberg history. He concentrated on the bureaucracy of the Nazi's and gave short shrift to Jewish resistance (some say), while this book quickly summarizes the holocaust from the Nazi's view point, then concentrates on the Jewish response, Jewish political parties, and Jewish resistance, whether successful or not. I learned a great deal from it, although one could get tired of hearing how the Left wing Zionists and the Right wing Zionists differed from the Bund, Dror, the PPR, etc. I found, though, that by enriching my knowledge of the myriad of Jewish parties and groups, it served to make the Jews in that time and place more real and to make it more difficult to make blanket statements about their predicament or what they "should have done". There are a few howlers - p.72 "When he [Himmler] completed agricultural school, he got a job ... at a nitrogen fertilizer company, reflecting, no doubt, a streak of coprophilia." Really! (Not that I doubt his coprophilia, just that I don't think that working at a chemical fertilizer plant could indicate this "without doubt"). Show Less
ISBN
055334532X / 9780553345322