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Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution
A single word--Auschwitz--is often used to encapsulate the totality of persecution and suffering involved in what we call the Holocaust. Yet a focus on a single concentration camp--however horrific what happened there, however massively catastrophic its scale--leaves an incomplete story, a
truncated history. It cannot fully communicate the myriad ways in which individuals became tangled up on the side of the perpetrators, and obscures the diversity of experiences among a wide range of victims as they struggled and died, or managed, against all odds, to survive. In the process, we also
miss the continuing legacy of Nazi persecution across generations, and across continents.
Mary Fulbrook's encompassing book attempts to expand our understanding, exploring the lives of individuals across a full spectrum of suffering and guilt, each one capturing one small part of the greater story. At its heart, Reckonings seeks to expose the disjuncture between official myths about
dealing with the past, on the one hand, and the extent to which the vast majority of Nazi perpetrators evaded justice, on the other. In the successor states to the Third Reich-East Germany, West Germany, and Austria--the attempts at justice varied widely in the years and decades after 1945. The
Communist East German state pursued Nazi criminals and handed down severe sentences; West Germany, seeking to draw a line under the past, tended toward leniency and tolerance. Austria made nearly no reckoning at all until the 1980s, when news broke about UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim's past.
Following the various periods of trials and testimonials after the war, the shifting attitudes toward both perpetrators and survivors, this major book weighs heavily down on the scales of justice.
The Holocaust is not mere history, and the memorial landscape covering it barely touches the surface; beneath it churns the maelstrom of reverberations of the Nazi era. Reckonings uses the stories of those who remained below the radar of public representations, outside the media spotlight, while
also situating their experiences in the changing wider contexts and settings in which they sought to make sense of unprecedented suffering. Fulbrook uses the word reckoning in the widest possible sense, to evoke the consequences of violence on those directly involved, but also on those affected
indirectly, and how its effects have expanded almost infinitely across place and time.
truncated history. It cannot fully communicate the myriad ways in which individuals became tangled up on the side of the perpetrators, and obscures the diversity of experiences among a wide range of victims as they struggled and died, or managed, against all odds, to survive. In the process, we also
miss the continuing legacy of Nazi persecution across generations, and across continents.
Mary Fulbrook's encompassing book attempts to expand our understanding, exploring the lives of individuals across a full spectrum of suffering and guilt, each one capturing one small part of the greater story. At its heart, Reckonings seeks to expose the disjuncture between official myths about
dealing with the past, on the one hand, and the extent to which the vast majority of Nazi perpetrators evaded justice, on the other. In the successor states to the Third Reich-East Germany, West Germany, and Austria--the attempts at justice varied widely in the years and decades after 1945. The
Communist East German state pursued Nazi criminals and handed down severe sentences; West Germany, seeking to draw a line under the past, tended toward leniency and tolerance. Austria made nearly no reckoning at all until the 1980s, when news broke about UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim's past.
Following the various periods of trials and testimonials after the war, the shifting attitudes toward both perpetrators and survivors, this major book weighs heavily down on the scales of justice.
The Holocaust is not mere history, and the memorial landscape covering it barely touches the surface; beneath it churns the maelstrom of reverberations of the Nazi era. Reckonings uses the stories of those who remained below the radar of public representations, outside the media spotlight, while
also situating their experiences in the changing wider contexts and settings in which they sought to make sense of unprecedented suffering. Fulbrook uses the word reckoning in the widest possible sense, to evoke the consequences of violence on those directly involved, but also on those affected
indirectly, and how its effects have expanded almost infinitely across place and time.
672 pages, Hardcover
First published September 4, 2018
42 people are currently reading
596 people want to read
About the author
Mary Fulbrook
42 books36 followers Mary Jean Alexandra Fulbrook (née Wilson) is a British academic, historian and author. Since 1995, she has been Professor of German History at University College London. She is a noted researcher in a wide range of fields, including religion and society in early modern Europe, the German dictatorships of the twentieth century, Europe after the Holocaust, and historiography and social theory.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 4, 2019
Understanding the genocide during holocaust
What made people to participate in a genocide that systematically killed six million Jews and destroyed much of Europe? How was that possible that Nazi-collaborators worked coherently to bring holocaust to a massive scale? Did anyone know what was happening and why didn’t they try stop it. These are some of the questions posed by the author in this 620 pages of anthology. I am not sure if all the historical facts documented in this book is authentic and verifiable, but the author is a well-respected German scholar and a professor at the University College, London.
The Third Reich was complicit in many ways for political and economic dominance of German race. War efforts and displacement was preceded by chronic abuses in German life. They grew indifferent to the fate of those who were suffering. But passivity was born due to the fear of the consequences of acting. Lots of people did feel sympathy with victims of persecution but had themselves also experienced it: their husbands was in a concentration camp for having been a communist, socialist, gay, Jew or a Romani gypsy. There was also a sense that your own father, brother, son, friend, or neighbor was fighting for the good of the fatherland. Jews were undoubtedly the largest and widest victims of Nazi era, but less sung victims like Romani gypsies, gays and communists also suffered. Gay were criminalized for a quarter of a century after the war. They often didn’t talk about it because they were so ashamed, and if they did talk about it they were shoved back into prison. Homosexuality was a mortal-sin and was treated as a criminal offence in German justice system. Gypsies were regarded as harmful to the German society. They were treated with suspicion and distrust.
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi camp were built in March 1933 in Dachau after Hitler became Chancellor, and his Nazi Party was given control of the police. Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between concentration camps and extermination camps. The latter was built by Nazi Germany for the industrial-scale mass murder of Jews using gas chambers.
The iconic picture of Nazi atrocities is remembered by the numerous pictures published since WWII. There were several notorious concentration camps; one of them is Auschwitz in Poland. Many photographs published in books and museums stand as monuments of this great tragedy. One of them is Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the train ramp that was used as a "debarkation-stop" during 1942–1944 operation. They are the monuments of intense human suffering; you hear a shrill of chill, coldness and emptiness that took the lives of so many children, women and men.
When humanity was abused at such a massive scale; justice was never done with accuracy. Big fishes found a way to escape punishment, and even mid-level masterminds of SS Army, Gestapo, administrators of armed forces, doctors and engineers, anti-Semites, reactionaries, and collaborators of the Third Reich didn’t come close to being caught. But it was frequently the minions like care-assistants and nurses in sanatorium and euthanasia clinics. Auschwitz, one of the largest concentration camps in the history of mankind employed more than 6,000 people, but only about 50 of those were brought to justice system.
The book is long and sometime repetitive, but readers interested in holocaust find this book appealing.
What made people to participate in a genocide that systematically killed six million Jews and destroyed much of Europe? How was that possible that Nazi-collaborators worked coherently to bring holocaust to a massive scale? Did anyone know what was happening and why didn’t they try stop it. These are some of the questions posed by the author in this 620 pages of anthology. I am not sure if all the historical facts documented in this book is authentic and verifiable, but the author is a well-respected German scholar and a professor at the University College, London.
The Third Reich was complicit in many ways for political and economic dominance of German race. War efforts and displacement was preceded by chronic abuses in German life. They grew indifferent to the fate of those who were suffering. But passivity was born due to the fear of the consequences of acting. Lots of people did feel sympathy with victims of persecution but had themselves also experienced it: their husbands was in a concentration camp for having been a communist, socialist, gay, Jew or a Romani gypsy. There was also a sense that your own father, brother, son, friend, or neighbor was fighting for the good of the fatherland. Jews were undoubtedly the largest and widest victims of Nazi era, but less sung victims like Romani gypsies, gays and communists also suffered. Gay were criminalized for a quarter of a century after the war. They often didn’t talk about it because they were so ashamed, and if they did talk about it they were shoved back into prison. Homosexuality was a mortal-sin and was treated as a criminal offence in German justice system. Gypsies were regarded as harmful to the German society. They were treated with suspicion and distrust.
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi camp were built in March 1933 in Dachau after Hitler became Chancellor, and his Nazi Party was given control of the police. Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between concentration camps and extermination camps. The latter was built by Nazi Germany for the industrial-scale mass murder of Jews using gas chambers.
The iconic picture of Nazi atrocities is remembered by the numerous pictures published since WWII. There were several notorious concentration camps; one of them is Auschwitz in Poland. Many photographs published in books and museums stand as monuments of this great tragedy. One of them is Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the train ramp that was used as a "debarkation-stop" during 1942–1944 operation. They are the monuments of intense human suffering; you hear a shrill of chill, coldness and emptiness that took the lives of so many children, women and men.
When humanity was abused at such a massive scale; justice was never done with accuracy. Big fishes found a way to escape punishment, and even mid-level masterminds of SS Army, Gestapo, administrators of armed forces, doctors and engineers, anti-Semites, reactionaries, and collaborators of the Third Reich didn’t come close to being caught. But it was frequently the minions like care-assistants and nurses in sanatorium and euthanasia clinics. Auschwitz, one of the largest concentration camps in the history of mankind employed more than 6,000 people, but only about 50 of those were brought to justice system.
The book is long and sometime repetitive, but readers interested in holocaust find this book appealing.
June 28, 2019
This is a big book and it contains a lot of very dense material dealing with the heavy topic of finding justice after WWII, and it’s no wonder it took me more than 3 months to read with a considerable break halfway. This will be a quote-centric review because I can hardly articulate some of the finer points that Fulbrook makes as well as she did.
The first third of the book deals with how the Nazis systematically persecuted various groups including the invalid, Jews, and homosexuals. The obvious set up is establishing motives: “For those involved in killing, varying combinations of careerism, cowardice, conformity, fear, lust, brutalization, hopelessness, desire for reward, choosing the lesser of two evils, simply ‘doing one’s duty’ or ‘obeying orders,’ or fitting in with what others were doing could all play a role.” Then there’s the concept of assigning blame: “Culpability was broadly if unevenly distributed, between the instigation, design, and administration of different forms of oppression; the execution of brutality on the ground; and the ambivalent complicity of daily decisions to turn away, to not see, not register the inhumanity that was so evident all around.” On the other end of the spectrum of identifying perpetrators was how it so easily dehumanized its victims: “In the process of persecution, people were stigmatized; their individuality was stripped from them; they became simply members of categories for discrimination, exploitation, punishment.”
The second part of the book deals with serving justice when it was possible. I had no idea that there were so many more trials that took place besides the famed Nuremburg trials and how differently countries like East and West Germany and Austria approached convictions. I have to admit, so much of this became bogged down with redundancies, I skipped quite a bit of this section except when it came to the Eichmann trial and its significance.
The last chunk of the book deals with the Holocaust’s legacy. Again, there were a lot of redundancies about survivor guilt, how the second generation (children of both Nazi’s and survivors) was coping, and memorials to victims. I skimmed much of it but found a few profound sections to read. “The soil of Europe is drenched with the blood of millions, pockmarked by innumerable sites of suffering and brutality. The landscape bears traces, some strikingly evident and others far less visible, of the Nazi architecture of exploitation and genocide.” This book seeks to extract lessons from the aftermath of this terrible period in history, and it’s an important topic, but its density and minutiae do not make for an engaging read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book via the Amazon Vine program.
The first third of the book deals with how the Nazis systematically persecuted various groups including the invalid, Jews, and homosexuals. The obvious set up is establishing motives: “For those involved in killing, varying combinations of careerism, cowardice, conformity, fear, lust, brutalization, hopelessness, desire for reward, choosing the lesser of two evils, simply ‘doing one’s duty’ or ‘obeying orders,’ or fitting in with what others were doing could all play a role.” Then there’s the concept of assigning blame: “Culpability was broadly if unevenly distributed, between the instigation, design, and administration of different forms of oppression; the execution of brutality on the ground; and the ambivalent complicity of daily decisions to turn away, to not see, not register the inhumanity that was so evident all around.” On the other end of the spectrum of identifying perpetrators was how it so easily dehumanized its victims: “In the process of persecution, people were stigmatized; their individuality was stripped from them; they became simply members of categories for discrimination, exploitation, punishment.”
The second part of the book deals with serving justice when it was possible. I had no idea that there were so many more trials that took place besides the famed Nuremburg trials and how differently countries like East and West Germany and Austria approached convictions. I have to admit, so much of this became bogged down with redundancies, I skipped quite a bit of this section except when it came to the Eichmann trial and its significance.
The last chunk of the book deals with the Holocaust’s legacy. Again, there were a lot of redundancies about survivor guilt, how the second generation (children of both Nazi’s and survivors) was coping, and memorials to victims. I skimmed much of it but found a few profound sections to read. “The soil of Europe is drenched with the blood of millions, pockmarked by innumerable sites of suffering and brutality. The landscape bears traces, some strikingly evident and others far less visible, of the Nazi architecture of exploitation and genocide.” This book seeks to extract lessons from the aftermath of this terrible period in history, and it’s an important topic, but its density and minutiae do not make for an engaging read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book via the Amazon Vine program.
March 14, 2020
For anyone who thinks the market for books about the Holocaust must be saturated and there is nothing left to say on the subject, ‘Reckonings ‘ proves them wrong. A very complex but readable account of the effects on the victims/survivors, the protagonists, the bystanders and their families both during the war and in the post-war period up to the present. In particular, Mary Fulbrook studies the different responses of the successor states - East and West Germany, Austria and Poland to both bringing the perpetrators to justice and recompensing the victims.
Most importantly, there are lessons to be learned for us all about how to react if we find ourselves as bystanders confronted with similar events - not totally unlikely when we witness the rise of the far right in Europe and America.
Most importantly, there are lessons to be learned for us all about how to react if we find ourselves as bystanders confronted with similar events - not totally unlikely when we witness the rise of the far right in Europe and America.
August 10, 2024
In Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice, Mary Fulbrook concentrates on the way that we—survivors, perpetrators, descendants, academics, non-academics, and so on—frame the Holocaust in our minds and our speech. Each of the three sections has a slightly different focus, but they all thoroughly discuss post-war silence, court proceedings, literature, museum exhibits, memorials, and conversation above all. I have to take my hat off to Fulbrook for tackling a topic that I would find impossible to write about. The atrocities of the Holocaust are such that the usual words—horrible, terrible, appalling, evil—don’t seem powerful enough to accurately describe what happened. But in Reckonings, she dives deep into the very question of how we do and do not talk about the holocaust...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.
December 20, 2019
This book is truly a magnificent achievement. Investigating the legacy of Nazi persecution, the author begins by examining the varying patterns of persecution, along the way exposing the falsehood of claims that people didn't know about 'it' as it occurred. It also emerges that despite the widespread sense that perpetrators were compelled to participate in the persecution through fear, those who did object to taking part in atrocities frequently did so with no negative consequences to themselves. She moves on to discuss the different patterns and outcomes of prosecution in the successor states of West Germany, East Germany and Austria, which were different in all three locations but insufficient everywhere. The third part of the book considers the profound impacts on survivors, perpetrators, 'bystanders' and their children and grandchildren before a nuanced discussion of the ethical challenges of memorialisation. It is a long, detailed, compassionate, intelligent and brilliant work. A remarkable achievement.
August 20, 2019
The winner of this year's Wolfson award and I read it in particular for this reason and I was not let down. Fulbrook is an excellent narrator whose storytelling throughout the book was easy to follow even for a lay man on the subject though I do find the beginning and the conclusion of the book was written in a more academic style. I am very much fond of her well-versed reference of literature and movies, which may lack in other materials of the similar subjects. It offers a good range of choice of extended reading without need to go through the notes of the book.
April 3, 2019
This is a book everyone should read.
April 16, 2019
This was quite a project. And I think it could have been edited down by about 150 pages without losing anything. But overall it was well done and interesting enough for me to keep reading.
March 14, 2025
The banality of evil has often been overlooked in historical reckonings, yet it constitutes the core of systemic violence. Nazi atrocities did not stem from isolated acts of individual malice, but rather emerged as collective violence initiated, sanctioned, and authorized from above – widely accepted and implemented by ordinary citizens below, reinforced through active participation across multiple dimensions. Though temporally distant, such violence remains disturbingly familiar in modern life.
Those who endorsed discrimination, exploitation, and torture essentially became accomplices. Like labor division, the distribution of responsibility and guilt later evolved into a strategy for perpetrators to deny agency, evade accountability, and refute accusations. By separating actions from roles, they justified personal conduct through obedience to orders while shifting blame, simultaneously portraying themselves as victims and even attributing culpability to the actual victims.
In reality, during the empire's final phase, masses provided logistical support for genocide without directly pulling triggers, later claiming ignorance. This explains why most participants or beneficiaries of atrocities escaped post-war reckoning. From Nuremberg Trials to Eichmann in Jerusalem and belated survivor testimonies, countless evaded judicial punishment. True justice might ultimately reside in moral and psychological reckoning.
Those who endorsed discrimination, exploitation, and torture essentially became accomplices. Like labor division, the distribution of responsibility and guilt later evolved into a strategy for perpetrators to deny agency, evade accountability, and refute accusations. By separating actions from roles, they justified personal conduct through obedience to orders while shifting blame, simultaneously portraying themselves as victims and even attributing culpability to the actual victims.
In reality, during the empire's final phase, masses provided logistical support for genocide without directly pulling triggers, later claiming ignorance. This explains why most participants or beneficiaries of atrocities escaped post-war reckoning. From Nuremberg Trials to Eichmann in Jerusalem and belated survivor testimonies, countless evaded judicial punishment. True justice might ultimately reside in moral and psychological reckoning.
January 23, 2021
This book is a bomb. Many groups of people (layers of Germans, Austrians, Polish people, to name but a few) will be uncomfortable with it. I think many will just ignore this book. There is so much material in it that is so sensitive to many people, even now.
This book has as I see it four main parts: 1) what happened - sickening things, it is hard to get through this part. 2) justice (or lack thereof, a part that sometimes makes your blood boil. 3) family and the legacy of this period, it is still relevant as some 3rd generation kids of former SS men believe the myth " Grandpa was forced to be an SS member but he didn't do anything wrong, it was a career move." Also a look at the impact on both sides, perpetrators and victim families get fair treatment 4) current research and memorial and dark tourism.
You should read (or listen) to this work as it is a rich work with a sober tone, crucial to understand what the Holocaust means in all its forms and what it seems, very long-lasting effects of it.
There is also a recognition of the fact that some groups who suffered horrible ( Roma- and Sinti, homosexual people, and mentally ill people) have been ignored and marginalized out of the memorial movement.
This book has as I see it four main parts: 1) what happened - sickening things, it is hard to get through this part. 2) justice (or lack thereof, a part that sometimes makes your blood boil. 3) family and the legacy of this period, it is still relevant as some 3rd generation kids of former SS men believe the myth " Grandpa was forced to be an SS member but he didn't do anything wrong, it was a career move." Also a look at the impact on both sides, perpetrators and victim families get fair treatment 4) current research and memorial and dark tourism.
You should read (or listen) to this work as it is a rich work with a sober tone, crucial to understand what the Holocaust means in all its forms and what it seems, very long-lasting effects of it.
There is also a recognition of the fact that some groups who suffered horrible ( Roma- and Sinti, homosexual people, and mentally ill people) have been ignored and marginalized out of the memorial movement.
May 29, 2022
Fascinating topic, but I found the writing could have been a bit more tightly honed.
For instance, the concluding chapter was almost entirely made up of "some people responded in X way, whereas others responded in Y way". I felt the message could have been better told if Fulbrook brought select stories into this chapter - our empathy and understanding comes best from zooming out to the big picture and then zooming into one person's illustrative story well-told (and back out again).
Fulbrook also writes in compound sentences almost continuously. This made it slow reading - some variation in sentence structure and more style in storytelling (strange as that may be to say about this topic) would have been more effective for her readers.
For instance, the concluding chapter was almost entirely made up of "some people responded in X way, whereas others responded in Y way". I felt the message could have been better told if Fulbrook brought select stories into this chapter - our empathy and understanding comes best from zooming out to the big picture and then zooming into one person's illustrative story well-told (and back out again).
Fulbrook also writes in compound sentences almost continuously. This made it slow reading - some variation in sentence structure and more style in storytelling (strange as that may be to say about this topic) would have been more effective for her readers.
March 13, 2020
This is an intelligent and well written account that, as Fulbrook states, “seeks to understand not only what happen during the Nazi era and its immediate impact but also the ways in which this past has continued to be of significance among members of subsequent generations” of perpetrators and victims. As opposed to the number of recent books on Nazi concentration and labor camps, Fulbrook’s account is devoted to how persons dealt with their participation as perpetrators in the Nazi mass killing of Jews and others, and how victims survived their ordeals in the camps. This is a finely wrought book, profound and emotive, illuminating and engaging.
September 5, 2021
This book, like many of these titles, are one volume "histories"; the story, is emphasized, at the expense of the historical analysis. They are perhaps, designed, on some level, to keep certain discussions, in public policy going. This story, has been told, many times. The research has continued, and much is updated here. There however, is no examination, of what, it means; no context, is provided, since it is assumed. This retreading of old ground, makes one wonder, if there are better materials to read.
February 21, 2025
This was definitely a dense read even for me who reads a lot of this genre and has a minor in it. I really liked the individual stories but I wish her main argument was a stronger throughline throughout the book. It really came out in the end and it definitely did pack a punch. It gave me a lot to think about and was quite different from some of the traditional arguments. A big investment but a worthy read.
September 6, 2020
Exactly what I wanted: a dispassionate account of the refusal or failure of postwar Europe to deal adequately - legally, socially, psychologically - with Nazi crimes. Fascinating and careful, methodical and comprehensive: whether, how and why the failures happened. The play-acting, obfuscation and self-deception involved is revelatory and damning. My understanding of where I live has altered.
May 26, 2023
A must read if you want to get a glimpse of the mega Macy of the Shoah and nazism on humanity
We have spent too much time of wandering about the « why » and attending commèrerions , here you have a work on the How
We have spent too much time of wandering about the « why » and attending commèrerions , here you have a work on the How
February 27, 2022
This an exceptional book. Dr. Fulbrook has written with expert scholarship and deep moral understanding.
Read
November 23, 2023It was a hard read but glad I finished it
June 8, 2024
A brilliant and comprehensive book that should be read in schools.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews