Related Reading
A Partisan's Memoir: Woman of the Holocaust - Faye Schulman
Publisher: Second Story Press, 1995
ISBN: 978-0929005768 paperback
Faye Schulman was learning photography when she escaped the Nazis and joined the Partisans-and she documented every harrowing moment. There have been two PBS documentaries on this talented teenaged Holocaust survivor.
Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic - Randell L. Bytwerk
Publisher: Michigan State University Press, 2004
ISBN: 978-0870137105 paperback
Why do totalitarian propagandas such as those created in Nazi Germany and the former German Democratic Republic initially succeed, and why do they ultimately fail? Outside observers often make two serious mistakes when they interpret the propaganda of this time. First, they assume the propagandas worked largely because they were supported by a police state, that people cheered Hitler and Honecker because they feared the consequences of not doing so. Second, they assume that propaganda really succeeded in persuading most of the citizenry that the Nuremberg rallies were a reflection of how most Germans thought, or that most East Germans were convinced Marxist-Leninists. Subsequently, World War II Allies feared that rooting out Nazism would be a very difficult task. No leading scholar or politician in the West expected East Germany to collapse nearly as rapidly as it did. Effective propaganda depends on a full range of persuasive methods, from the gentlest suggestion to overt violence, which the dictatorships of the twentieth century understood well. In many ways, modern totalitarian movements present worldviews that are religious in nature. Nazism and Marxism-Leninism presented themselves as explanations for all of life—culture, morality, science, history, and recreation. They provided people with reasons for accepting the status quo. Bending Spines examines the full range of persuasive techniques used by Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and concludes that both systems failed in part because they expected more of their propaganda than it was able to deliver.
Confronting Genocide: Judaism, Christianity, Islam - Steven L. Jacobs
Publisher: Lexington Books, 2009
ISBN: 978-0739135891 paperback
Confronting Genocide is the first collection of essays by recognized scholars primarily in the field of religious studies to address this timely topic. In addition to theoretical thinking about both religion and genocide and the relationship between the two, these authors look at the tragedies of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Sudan from their own unique vantage point.
False Papers: Deception and Survival in the Holocaust - Robert Melson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2005
ISBN: 978-0252072505 paperback
False Papers is the astounding story of a Jewish family who survived the Holocaust by living in the open. By sheer chutzpah and bravado, Robert Melson's mother acquired the identity papers that would disguise herself, her husband, and her son for the duration of the war. Always operating under the theory that one needed to be seen in order not to be noticed, the Mendelsohns became not just ordinary Polish Catholics, but the Zamojskis, a Polish family of noble lineage.
Armed with their new lives and their new pasts, the Count and Countess Zamojski and their son, Count Bobi, took shelter in the very shadow of the Nazi machine, hiding day after day in plain sight behind a façade of elegant good manners and cultivated self-assurance, even arrogance: "you had to shout [the Gestapo] down or they would kill you." Melson's father took advantage of his flawless German to build a lucrative business career while working for a German businessman of the Schindler type. The Zamojskis acquired beautiful homes in the German quarter of Krakow and in Prague, where they had maids and entertained Nazi officials. Their masquerade enabled them to save not only themselves and their son but also an uncle and three Jewish women, one of whom became part of the family.
Amazon
University of Illinois Press (publisher)
Google Books
Fifty Key Thinkers on the Holocaust and Genocide - Paul R. Bartrop, Steven L. Jacobs
Publisher: Routledge, 2010
ISBN: 978-0415775519 paperback (available on Kindle)
This unique volume critically discusses the works of fifty of the most influential scholars involved in the study of the Holocaust and genocide. Studying each scholar's background and influences, the authors examine the ways in which their major works have been received by critics and supporters, and analyse each thinker's contributions to the field. Key figures discussed range from historians and philosophers, to theologians, anthropologists, art historians and sociologists. A thoughtful collection of groundbreaking thinkers, this book is an ideal resource for academics, students, and all those interested in both the emerging and rapidly evolving field of Genocide Studies and the established field of Holocaust Studies.
Amazon
Routledge (publisher)
Google Books
In Search of Yesterday: The Holocaust and the Quest for Meaning - Steven L. Jacobs
Publisher: University Press of America, 2005
ISBN: 978-0761832454 paperback
In Search of Yesterday is a distillation of the author's writings about the Holocaust / Shoah in three distinct areas: family stories, the quest for meaning in seemingly inexplicable events, and rethinking and reinterpreting biblical texts in light of the Holocaust / Shoah.
Julius Streicher: Nazi Editor of the Notorious Anti-semitic Newspaper Der Sturmer - Randell L. Bytwerk
Publisher: Cooper Square Press, 2001
ISBN: 978-0815411567 paperback
A look at the life and work of Julius Streicher (1885-1946) the editor of Der Sturmer a widely read anti-semitic weekly newspaper.
The Long Walk Home with Miracles Along the Way - Anatole Kurdsjuk
Publisher: Infinity Publishing, 2005
ISBN: 978-0741424280 paperback
This is a story about a family - but it is more. It is a history of suffering and persecution of the Russian people, first by the Stalin and then by Nazis. Above all else, it is a story of love and the human will. Follow Jacob and Olga as the horrible realities of early 20th Century Russia cause them to lose their home, children, face separation, exile, imprisonment and forced marches to slave labor camps. Ultimately, overcoming stumbling block after stumbling block they come to America. Experience their joy and sadness, love and loss, faith and determination. Most of all experience The Miracles Along the Way.
My Heart in a Suitcase - Anne L. Fox
Publisher: Mitchell Vallentine & Company, 1996
ISBN: 978-0853033110 paperback (out of print)
In this memoir Anne L. Fox writes of her life as a child from Nazi Germany. At age twelve she was uprooted from a loving and protected home and sent to England via the kindertransport to live with strangers in a strange country.
Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust - Robert Melson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1996
ISBN: 978-0226519913 paperback
In a study that compares the major attempts at genocide in world history, Robert Melson creates a sophisticated framework that links genocide to revolution and war. He focuses on the plights of Jews after the fall of Imperial Germany and of Armenians after the fall of the Ottoman as well as attempted genocides in the Soviet Union and Cambodia. He argues that genocide often is the end result of a complex process that starts when revolutionaries smash an old regime and, in its wake, try to construct a society that is pure according to ideological standards.
