Customer Reviews

Bound Upon A Wheel Of Fire: Why So Many German Jews Made The Tragic Decision To Remain In Nazi Germany

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This book gives a good representation of what happened in the Jewish community as Hitler grew in power. This shows the transformation from a community that had little regard for a Jewish identity to being bonded together by that mere fact alone. Dippel shows the unfortunate internal struggles that prevented any full Jewish unity (from assimilation, emigration, & fighting back to denial and prejdice). It allows you to see just what was felt during a confusing time in Germany & what was being done about it.

The subtitle is a bit misleading since, as the book points out, about 2/3 of German Jews did leave Nazi Germany before 1940. Having said that, the book did teach me something I didn't know: over half of those Jews left during the last couple of years before WW 2, rather than leaving right after Hitler took power.

The book seeks to answer the question: Why did Jews dawdle? Because at first, it was unclear how bad Nazi oppression would be; in the mid-1930s, it seemed quite possible that Jews could still make a living in Nazi Germany. But by 1938, the situation was more desperate, and most Jews tried to leave.

If anything, the author fails to explain not why Jews stayed, but why so many were able to leave in the last years before the Holocaust. In 1938-39, most large countries were unwilling to accept a significant number of Jewish refugees. Yet over 100,000 German Jews managed to somehow leave Germany during those years. A better book would have explained how they managed to do it, and what separated the successful emigrants from those who tried to leave but couldn't.