The History Book Club discussion

This thread is dedicated to the discussion of the Holocaust and related topics:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwar...

'Aussie Rick' - I have only read a few books dedicated to this terrible subject but the one's I have read have been excellent. Its not a subject that you can enjoy reading about but it is something that needs to be read every once in a while to remind us of the horror's visited upon innocent people in time of war.

by Martin Gilbert

by Laurence Rees

These books I have in my library but haven't had time to read yet:

by Lyn Smith

by Saul Friedländer

Thank you Aussie Rick.

Yes... this a tough one. The horror is of such a magnitude it is mind numbing to try and comprehend. Related in some way is work of the officer corps of the NKVD. Was that revenge pure and simple? Two evils can never make sweetness, love and light. Being half Latvian, I have some second hand knowledge from my father (an eye witness) of his experience in Riga and his march through Germany, eventually to England. It is a most sensitive subject but important. There are still dangerous fools who deny the holocaust, I personally don't agree with laws, such as in Austria prosecuting them, any more than I would agree to bringing to court the Flat Earth Society or even communists. The problem with this subject is that it (naturally) is very emotional and there are some forces working hard to enforce a 'communal' guilt on the rest of the world that does little to advance a good understanding of Zionism and how we should all work out our solutions for living; oh yes; the Middle-East is still a hot issue.
I have no wish to denigrate the souls who suffered under any pernicious regime. There is no doubt in my mind the evil nature of Nazism. It will be interesting though to see how far the unspoken–for a large part–related issues are explored.

I've carried this post across from the music thread for those who have an interest in this terrible period of history.

If you wanted some music that reflected the Holocaust then I would suggest listening to: "The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" by Henryk Gorecki

Henryk Gorecki

"This Symphony’s inspiration came from a book Górecki found during the Nazi occupation of Poland that showed examples of the different messages scratched on the walls of a Gestapo prison. One message was written by a young girl that said, “Mama, don't cry.” This was a very simple, but heartfelt cry that scorched his soul."

I have these in my library:

by Leni Yahil

by Robert Jay Lifton

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I've carried this post across from the music thread for those who have an interest in this terrible period of history.

If you wanted some music that reflected the Holocaust then I would suggest..."

Also may I recommend a concert by Theodorakis... will have to try and figure a link... somehow!

Source: CNN:

My Faith: Yom Kippur 1945, in a camp for Holocaust survivors

Editor's Note: Stanley Abramovitch was born in Poland and lost his mother and two brothers in the Holocaust. He worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for 63 years before retiring in 2008 and continues to consult for the group.

By Stanley Abramovitch, Special to CNN

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09...

I read this book recently about this gentleman's account of his horrific experience with his family. It was riveting, beautifully written. I literally did not put it down once I picked it up. And then when I was done reading spent a bit wringing out my hanky.
by Elie Wiesel

Yes, I read that book a long time ago and it was extremely moving.

Oprah also featured him and this book and there were quite a few good exchanges between them:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Y...

And from the United States Holocaust Museum:

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/f...

Here is a story in today's news:

Secret Jewish heritage converts neo-Nazi
By Kristin Cuff, CNN
September 24, 2010 -- Updated 1833 GMT (0233 HKT)

Regarding how some Poles are rediscovering Jewish heritage


http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/eur...

The United States Holocaust Museum interviews Michael Chabon:

Voices of Antisemitism:

March 13, 2008
MICHAEL CHABON
author
In his 2007 novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon tries to imagine a way out of the Holocaust.

Podcast:

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/f...


Michael Chabon

Daniel Green introduces Michael Chabon:

DANIEL GREENE:
When Michael Chabon first found Say It In Yiddish, a phrasebook for travelers published in 1958, he wondered where anyone would find such a book useful. In his 2007 novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Chabon invented just the place—a fictional settlement for displaced European Jews in Alaska. In The Yiddish Policemen's Union, as in so much of Chabon's work, the Holocaust is ever present in the background.

Welcome to Voices on Antisemitism, a free podcast series of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum made possible by generous support from the Oliver and Elizabeth Stanton Foundation. I'm Daniel Greene. Every other week, we invite a guest to reflect about the many ways that antisemitism and hatred influence our world today. Here's author Michael Chabon

An alternate history

Here is a new book that caught my eye, mainly because of the famous photograph on the cover which is what the story is about; "The Boy: A Holocaust Story" by Dan Porat.

by Dan Porat
Publishers blurb:
A gravel road. A sunny day. A soldier. A gun. A child, arms high in the air. A moment captured on film. But what is the history behind arguably the most recognizable photograph of the Holocaust? In The Boy: A Holocaust Story, the historian Dan A. Porat unpacks this split second that was immortalized on film and unravels the stories of the individuals—both Jews and Nazis—associated with it.
The Boy presents the story of three Nazi criminals, ranging in status from SS sergeant to low-ranking SS officer to SS general. It is also the story of two Jewish victims, a teenage girl and a young boy, who encounter these Nazis in Warsaw in the spring of 1943. The book is remarkable in its scope, picking up the lives of these participants in the years preceding World War I and following them to their deaths. One of the Nazis managed to stay at large for twenty-two years. One of the survivors lived long enough to lose a son in the Yom Kippur War. The sixty-two photographs dispersed throughout help narrate these five lives. And, in keeping with the emotional immediacy of those photographs, Porat has deliberately used a narrative style that, drawing upon extensive research, experience, and oral interviews, places the reader in the middle of unfolding events.

Reviews:
“A poignant and riveting investigation.” —Elie Wiesel

“With extraordinary imagination and creativity, Dan Porat pieces together the available evidence and narrates the biography of a photograph, an iconic photograph of a child's helplessness in the face of the Nazi terror. His account complicates and humanizes the story of the photograph by productively and provocatively pushing the limits of the historian's craft. A gripping read!” —David Myers, Professor of Jewish History, UCLA

“With originality and alertness to detail, Dan Porat brilliantly tells the story behind one of the most recognized photographs of the Holocaust. Commingling imagination, story-telling, and photographs, Porat crafts an arresting story about Jewish victims and Nazi perpetrators. The Boy is a historical-literary narrative that brings to life a moment frozen in time and broadens our understanding of what common historical writing can describe.” —Alon Confino, Professor, University of Virginia

“In this captivating story, Dan Porat allows us to imagine the unimaginable by peering through the eyes of a single boy and those who brutally sealed his fate. A historical detective story of the highest order.”—Sam Wineburg, Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History, Stanford University

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Holocaust is the role played by the Allies, and especially Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill personally, in preventing the emigration of Jews from Nazi-held Europe.

The expulsion of Jews from their homes and workplaces created a massive internal refugee problem for the Nazis. Until 1942, the Nazis were perfectly willing to "sell" the Jews to the highest bidder and then later to allow the Jews to emigrate to Palestine or Madagascar ("the Madagascar Plan"). Such a flow of refugees out of German controlled Europe depended on the U.S. and British Navies offering the refugees safe passage on the high seas. Roosevelt and Churchill, however, saw no reason to help the Germans manage their internal refugee crisis and denied the request. Churchill went so far as to veto Roosevelt's desire to ship bread and milk to the Jews.

With all avenues closed, Nazi bureaucrats met at Wannsee to plan the final solution for the "Jewish Problem." As Yehuda Bauer concluded in "Genocide: Was It the Nazis' Original Plan?," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 450 (Jul., 1980, pp. 35-45):

Genocide and Holocaust are, therefore, two different concepts. Both are repeatable, and in that lies the universal importance of dealing with the subject. If we then change the name of this article, we can ask, Was Holocaust the Nazis original plan? And our answer will be that the idea of a mass murder of the Jews was the logical consequence of Nazi theories, but that the logical conclusion was not drawn until 1941; that even then mass murder was avoidable because there was a willingness to sell or barter Jews out of the same attitude that produced the readiness to murder them; and that the free world was not prepared to buy the Jews, because its priorities then and now fall short of its declared ethical values. Winning wars was primary; saving human lives was not.

Vheissu wrote: "One of the most disturbing aspects of the Holocaust is the role played by the Allies, and especially Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill personally, in preventing the emigration of Jews fro..."

Good food for thought here, and a reminder of some important moral questions often slighted in histories of this war.

From The Laws of War by Richard Wassertrom in
Malham M. Wakin:

Morally defensible laws of war start with a premise "sufficiently ambitious that it refuses to regard as immutable the character of contemporary warfare and weaponry, and requires instead that war itself change so as to conform to the demands of morality."

Morality being an issue because the only "just war" is one defending humanity against inhumanity.

It follows that: "There is something genuinely odious about a code of conduct that says: If there is a conflict between the attainment of a military objective and one or more of the prohibitions imposed by the laws of [a just] war, it is the prohibitions that are to give way."

Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke" brings up this aspect of the war, and I noticed you gave it four stars. He writes about the Jewish refugees from Wurtemberg:

"Hitler didn't want them, the French government didn't want them, and Roosevelt didn't want them. Churchill wanted to starve them until they revolted against their oppressors."


Nicholson Baker

Now this a subject of which I have spent many,many hours studying and one I would like to discuss at length. The Third Reich in my opinion and the Holocaust give a great insight into the creature that inhabits the third planet from the sun. I feel even today humans have the capability to carry out this horror and reconcile amongst ourselves. To study this subject one must not only read; but must experience via the music and movies of the era. Let me strongly suggest viewing "Triumph des Willens" and listen to "Wenn Die SS und Die SA Aufmarschiert" and "Die Jugend Marschiert", all of which are available on You Tube; then go to the Prelinger archive and watch "Escape from Sobibor". Study Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and beast like Georg Bachmeyer or that wonderful father Franz Zieries (commandant of Mauthausen). Yes, indeed Franz was the father image we all strive for; you see on his son's eleventh birthday he gave him a gun.......and 50 Jews for target practice. Also read "Death Dealer". Rudolf HössRudolf Höss

Great suggestions, Harry. Thanks!

A film that I have shown to students who responded well is HBOs Conspiracy, with Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci, which concerns the 1942 Wannsee Conference.

I am currently reading the highly regarded and still controversial, first hand account of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem:
by Hannah Arendt

Vheissu........Thanx, You have a knowledge and understanding of this subject which intrigues me. Check out my profile/books and let me know if we can be friends. I haven't studied the Eichmann trial in depth; although, I have seen some of the movies of the trial and read a small amount of commentary of the trial. Eichmann was a beast in my opinion and the guilty verdict was called for. His abduction in South America could be questioned; however, in my opinion his guilt was absolute!

As you are aware folks, there is no self promotion on these threads and unfortunately we have to be consistent.

There was some discussion on a book by one of our group members who is also an author. We cannot post any self promotion citations on any threads aside from this one where we honor those authors (link provided below) who are also contributing group members. Post 34 on the contributing author's thread was cited. Unfortunately, it cannot be cited here. But as mentioned above we are providing the "promote author's thread url" as a reference site; and per our guidelines deleting the reference here.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Bentley if you are refering to my last post; I was refering to my bookshelves. As of yet I haven't written a book.

No Harry I was not referring to your post. If you had provided a link to your reviews or something personal; then I would have had to respond but you did not and are perfectly fine with the guidelines. I was referring to another situation.

I suppose this should come as no surprise, but it still sickens me to hear about it.

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

Rediscovered a book when cleaning out the spare room
by Abraham H Biderman

Abraham Biderman's The World of My Past (1995) is a powerful and poignant memoir of the author's experiences during the Holocaust, with the bulk of the details being devoted to his years in the Lodz ghetto, the longest surviving ghetto in Nazi-dominated Europe. The book is more than a memoir, however. Throughout his account Biderman provides information about the broader historical context, based on his own primary research and on his study of secondary sources, which are acknowledged in the footnotes. The inclusion of this broader material is both a strength and a weakness. For the general reader who does not have an in-depth knowledge of the Holocaust, the additional information provides a context, allowing a clearer understanding of Biderman's personal story to emerge. On the other hand, the additional information sometimes interrupts the powerful flow of the narrative.

Vheissu wrote: "I suppose this should come as no surprise, but it still sickens me to hear about it.

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says"

Hi Vheissu,

There were a number of books published in the late 1980's and early 1990's about this subject.

Sanctuary: Nazi Fugitives in Australia (no cover) by Mark Aarons

by David Cesarani

There is another book that I need to find the details for and will post here later if your interested.

It is all so dreary, eh, Rick? Not so such that American leaders did it as that it comes as no real surprise. Why do Americans tolerate such crimes from their own government? It may have been Bentley who noted U.S. opposition to the I.C.C. This is not the America I was taught to love as a child.

Hi Vheissu, I suppose many back in those days believed that they may have been acting in good faith for national security with the Cold War fast approaching, or I hope that is why many took these actions. The same thing happened with Japanese scientist who worked for the Army developing biological and germ warfare weapons. You should read; "Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II" by Peter Williams.

Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II (no cover) by Peter Williams

It is strange how we can demonize certian actions, yet let people off the hook who did these while hanging others. Men like Klaus Barbie were protected by the U.S. because they were important in the cold war? Many influential people argued after the war to go light on Oswald Pohl; yet he was head of the SS administrative and economic department. They argued he was such a nice person.

I totally agree with you Harry, all those involved in war crimes should have faced justice, regardless of how 'useful' they may have been. A number of war criminals were relocated in Australia after the war under assumed identities without the knowledge of many in power.

Geoffrey Robertson

A seriously heavy tome to plough through. Robertson is a lawyer and he covers the history of war crimes and the world legal systems with an exacting eye. Geoffrey Robertson, an advocate of human rights for many years, devotes the first half of this persuasive and forthright book to the history of human rights thinking until the pivotal Nuremberg Charter of 1945, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and the recent development of international law to govern them. The 2nd half of the book focuses on more recent events.

I am only in the early stages of the book - it's not a light read - but worth it if one is to understand why certain things happened and did not at the time get justice and why some war crimes continue to be sanctioned or glossed over in military doublespeak. What is needed according to Robertson is a universally ratified international criminal court.

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Here is a new book that caught my eye, mainly because of the famous photograph on the cover which is what the story is about; "The Boy: A Holocaust Story" by Dan Porat.

[bookcover:The Boy: A Hol..."

Am on the lookout for this one. Thanks Aussie Rick.

Velvetink wrote: "Geoffrey Robertson

A seriously heavy tome to plough through. Robertson is a lawyer and he covers the history of war crimes and the world l..."

Wow, looks like a weighty read yet very interesting. Am curious to hear what you think of it when you get through it. Thanks for posting this.

Alisa, yes it might be a while before I am finished, been reading a few pages every night most of this year..contains much I didn't know about so am constantly having to look up on the internet before I can proceed, and International and Global Law is totally new to me another reason why it's taking so long..there is a lot of Legislation discussed. Also the print size in this Penguin edition is 8 or 9pt, so very small, my eyes can't take too much in one go.

Velvetink,,,,,,this sounds like a very interesting read, I would love to hear your comments as you proceed. Alisa, I would sincerely like to hear your comments also if you read this tome.

I've just seen that this book has been released and looks like a very comprehensive account of a sometimes forgotten episode of the Holocaust; "The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide" by Daniel Blatman.

by Daniel Blatman
Description:
From January 1945, in the last months of the Third Reich, about 250,000 inmates of concentration camps perished on death marches and in countless incidents of mass slaughter. They were murdered with merciless brutality by their SS guards, by army and police units, and often by gangs of civilians as they passed through German and Austrian towns and villages. Even in the bloody annals of the Nazi regime, this final death blow was unique in character and scope.
In this first comprehensive attempt to answer the questions raised by this final murderous rampage, the author draws on the testimonies of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. Hunting through archives throughout the world, Daniel Blatman sets out to explain—to the extent that is possible—the effort invested by mankind’s most lethal regime in liquidating the remnants of the enemies of the “Aryan race” before it abandoned the stage of history. What were the characteristics of this last Nazi genocide? How was it linked to the earlier stages, the slaughter of millions in concentration camps? How did the prevailing chaos help to create the conditions that made the final murderous rampage possible?
In its exploration of a topic nearly neglected in the current history of the Shoah, this book offers unusual insight into the workings, and the unraveling, of the Nazi regime. It combines micro-historical accounts of representative massacres with an overall analysis of the collapse of the Third Reich, helping us to understand a seemingly inexplicable chapter in history.

Reviews:
"This outstanding book is the first comprehensive, systematic study of the final phase of the murderous regime implemented by the Third Reich. Blatman provides heartrending descriptions of the cruelties experienced by the evacuees and of the strategies they employed to cope with the lethal conditions of the forced marches. He also offers the best summary available of the system of concentration and labor camps and the relation of that system to the mass murder of European Jewry." - David Engel, (author of In the Shadow of Auschwitz)

"A strikingly original work that breaks important new ground on the murderous evacuations, at the end of the Second World War, of more than a quarter of a million prisoners westward from concentration camps and elsewhere in the east. Blatman not only provides an overlooked history of these slaughters, he shows how the gruesome deportations involved not just Jews, but many other groups. Surveying this horrific history, he proposes new answers to questions about the place of these killings in the history of Nazi criminality and wartime German society. This book amplifies our understanding of the Holocaust and illuminates the disintegration of the Third Reich." - Michael R. Marrus, (author of Some Measure of Justice)

"It's hard to come up with a new historical thesis about the Holocaust or Nazism, fields of study that are already jam-packed with researchers. But groundbreaking studies do appear every now and then, studies that offer a different interpretation of familiar historical events and can change the way we understand history. Daniel Blatman's The Death Marches is such a work...Daniel Blatman's book is monumental, not only because of its breadth but also because of the enormous variety of sources it relies on, collected by the author from more than 20 archives in six European countries and the United States. It is a masterpiece of historical work, its power stemming not only from its scope but also from the radical insights it offers on its subject." - Boaz Neumann (Haaretz )

"Blatman's searing account of the last days of the Holocaust focuses on the forced marches designed to keep prisoners of the Nazi regime from liberation by the Allies...In this litany of horror, Blatman describes the evil that bland bureaucrats can generate." - Publishers Weekly

"Blatman's assertion, not shared by all historians, that the death marches must be seen as the logical result of Nazi policies helps place the story of concentration camps more firmly into the history of the Holocaust...It's an important read for specialists and students of modern genocide." - Frederic Krome (Library Journal )

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I've just seen that this book has been released and looks like a very comprehensive account of a sometimes forgotten episode of the Holocaust; "The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide" ..."

The enormity of it all is hard to comprehend on a large scale - and the organisation needed.
I picked up this autobiography recently by Kitty Hart who survived the death march - following her map she and her mother were shunted from one camp to another across Europpe.
Return to Auschwitz by Kitty Hart-Moxon

Hi Velvetink, it looks like a pretty amazing book and a engrossing story, I bet also hard to read considering the content.

by Kitty Hart-Moxon

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Hi Velvetink, it looks like a pretty amazing book and a engrossing story, I bet also hard to read considering the content.

by [author:Kitty Hart-Moxon|609..."

I haven't started it yet Aussie Rick, but browsed through the photographs which were fairly confronting.

I have been distracted by personal problems and business for the last few months and have not been able to apply myself to this discussion; yet, I feel this is a vital; critical discussion. More needs to be said; as America becomes more polarized we need to maintain and build an acumen of this facet of human behavior; or we risk repeating the past.

My wife highly recommends and it is on my TBR list:

by Neal Bascomb

Info:
When the Allies stormed Berlin in 1945, Adolf Eichmann, the operational manager of the Final Solution, shed his SS uniform and vanished. Bringing him to justice would require a harrowing fifteen-year chase stretching from war-ravaged Europe to the shores of Argentina. Hunting Eichmann follows the Nazi as he escapes two American POW camps, hides out in the mountains, slips out of Europe on the ratlines, and builds an anonymous life in Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile, concentration camp survivor Simon Wiesenthal’s persistent search for the monster gradually evolves into an international manhunt that involves the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle. Presented in a pulse-pounding, hour-by-hour account, the capture of Eichmann and efforts by Israeli agents to smuggle him out of Argentina to stand trial bring the narrative to a stunning conclusion. Based on groundbreaking new information and interviews, recently declassified documents, and meticulous research, Hunting Eichmann is an authoritative, finely nuanced history that offers the intrigue of a detective story and the thrill of great spy fiction.

Harry wrote: "I have been distracted by personal problems and business for the last few months and have not been able to apply myself to this discussion; yet, I feel this is a vital; critical discussion. More ne..."

Yes, Harry we agree and we hope that things are sorting out for you. Post when you have time. We enjoy your input.

Read a very good and different take on the holocaust by Art Spiegelman. I highly recommend it to everyone that has not read it yet.

by Peter Longerich

Another book which reveals the steps taken by the Nazis that would ultimately lead to the "final solution", with some attention paid to the Wansee Conference. The author posits that anti-Semitism was not a mere by-product of Nazi political mobilization but a central tenet.

Let me suggest another read on the subject..........Auschwitz By Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan Van Pelt

Good job on the book cover Harry. But remember we add the book cover, the author's photo if available and always the author's link.

I have added it for you this time.

by Deborah Dwork
(no photo available)

Thanx Bentley; Is there a way we could simply identify the book and with one click accomplish all three tasks?

I wish there were; but frankly doing all three takes me about 32 seconds and I moved slowly.

by Winston S. Churchill

One button would be awesome. Keep trying Harry, you are doing good and we all appreciate your efforts.

For sure Harry.

I discovered this film on You-Tube.......Try to hold back a tear........http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM6HLM...

I think you need to cut and past the Youtube address so that we can go straight to the video.