Pogroms

The twentieth century has seen both the greatest triumph of Jewish history and its greatest tragedy: the birth of the nation of Israel, and the state-sponsored genocide of the Holocaust. A People Apart is the first study to examine the role played by the Jews themselves, across the whole of Europe, during the century and a half leading up to these events. David Vital explores the Jews' troubled relationship with Europe, documenting the struggles of this 'nation without a territory' to establish a place for itself within an increasingly polarized and nationalist continent. He examines the clash within the Jewish community between politically neutral traditionalists and a new group of activists, whose unprecedented demands for national and political self-determination were stimulated both by increasing civil emancipation and the mounting effort to drive the Jews out of Europe altogether. Controversially, Professor Vital concludes that the history of the Jewish people was indeed in crucial respects although certainly not all of their own making; at times by their own autonomous action and choice; at others by inaction and default. This powerful and stimulating new analysis represents a watershed in our understanding of the history of the Jews in Europe.

Between Dignity and Despair draws on the extraordinary memoirs, diaries, interviews, and letters of Jewish women and men to give us the first intimate portrait of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Kaplan tells the story of Jews in Germany not from the hindsight of the Holocaust, nor by focusing on the persecutors, but from the bewildered and ambiguous perspective of Jews trying to navigate their daily lives in a world that was becoming more and more insane. Answering the charge that Jews should have left earlier, Kaplan shows that far from seeming inevitable, the Holocaust was impossible to foresee precisely because Nazi repression occurred in irregular and unpredictable steps until the massive violence of Novemer 1938. Then the flow of emigration turned into a torrent, only to be stopped by the war. By that time Jews had been evicted from their homes, robbed of their possessions and their livelihoods, shunned by their former friends, persecuted by their neighbors, and driven into forced labor. For those trapped in Germany, mere survival became a nightmare of increasingly desperate options. Many took their own lives to retain at least some dignity in death; others went underground and endured the fears of nightly bombings and the even greater terror of being discovered by the Nazis. Most were murdered. All were pressed to the limit of human endurance and human loneliness. Focusing on the fate of families and particularly women's experience, Between Dignity and Despair takes us into the neighborhoods, into the kitchens, shops, and schools, to give us the shape and texture, the very feel of what it was like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany.

This book offers an intriguing examination of the everyday operations of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. How was the Gestapo able to detect the smallest signs of non-compliance with Nazi doctrines--especially "crimes" pertaining to the private spheres of social, family, and sexual life? How could the police enforce policies such as those designed to isolate Jews, or the foreign workers brought to Germany after 1939, with such apparent ease? Addressing these questions, Gellately argues that the key factor in the successful enforcement of Nazi racial policy was the willingness of German citizens to provide authorities with information about suspected "criminality." He demonstrates that without some degree of popular participation in the operation of institutions such as the Gestapo, the regime would have been seriously hampered in the "realization of the unthinkable," not only inside Germany but also in many of the occupied countries. The product of extensive archival research, this incisive study surveys the experiences of areas across Germany, drawing out national, local, and regional implications.

"I find myself unable to praise it too highly. It is quite as if a whole culture had been rescued from the dust, and all of its inner qualities, its half-forgotten voices and passions, have been brought to hidden life.... All persons who care about the possibilities of human exaltation and suffering will find this an endlessly absorbing and endlessly tragic book". -- Irving Howe

While the pervasive anti-Semitism of "ordinary" Germans in the first half of the twentieth century has received much attention lately, very little has been written about America's own history of anti-Semitism. In this shocking book, Joseph Bendersky argues that such racism permeated the highest ranks of the U.S. military throughout the past century, having a very real effect on policy decisions. Through ten years of research in more than thirty-five archives, the author has uncovered irrefutable evidence of an endemic and virulent anti-Semitism throughout the Army Corps from the turn of the century right up to the 1970s. These sources reveal how the "Secret Americans" (a group of officers who described themselves as true patriots and who felt silenced by Roosevelt) were convinced of the physical, intellectual, and moral inferiority of Jews and feared that their"superior" Anglo-Saxon/Nordic culture was threatened by a radical and destabilizing Jewish conspiracy.

This fully developed and clearly articulated perspective had a direct effect on policy discussions and decisions, affecting such matters as immigration, refugees, military strategy, and the establishment of Israel. Secret agents scoured Europe in a desperate attempt to prove the existence of the Jewish conspiracy. General Moseley, a close friend of Eisenhower's and one of the Army's most decorated officers, demanded the sterilization of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. During the war, the Chief of t

In Because They Were Jews, Meyer Weinberg examines the history of antisemitism in twelve representative countries from ancient times to the present. His selection includes the eight European countries with the largest number of Jews, as well as countries where Jews amounted to less than one percent of the population. He raises questions about traditional approaches to the study of antisemitism and chooses instead to analyze it as a systematic pattern emerging from particular political situation. A comprehensive discussion includes anti-Jewish actions in education, employment, housing, government and religion in each of the twelve countries. Concluding chapters integrate the material on each country and analyze similarities and differences. A bibliographic essay provides an exhaustive guide to the English-language references on this topic.

Thoroughly exploring the history of the conflict between Christians and Jews from medieval to modern times, this wide-ranging volume includes newly uncovered material from the recently opened post-Soviet archives. Anna Sapir Abulafia delineates controversial issues of inter-faith confrontation, and a number of eminent scholars from around the globe discuss openly and objectively the dynamics of Jewish creative response in the face of violence. Through the analysis of the histories of the Christian and Jewish religious traditions, this book provides a valuable understanding of their relationship as a modern day phenomenon.

This collection of essays attempts to reassess the existing historiography of Polish-Jewish relations just before, during and after World War II. Topics covered include the pre-war legacy of anti-semitism; and the official Polish response to the Nazi Final Solution.