Customer Reviews

The Destruction of the European Jews

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

More than any other book, this one answers the question, "How did it happen?"

Mr. Hilberg provides the reader with the historical foundations for the Holocaust, and then relates in great detail the entire administrative process, without which the holocaust could not have occurred. I have read the book several times and never cease to be impressed with the thorough understanding and objectivity that Mr. Hilberg lends to the subject.

If you are seeking emotion and high drama, this book is definitely not what you are looking for. But if you want to know how such a horrible thing could have occurred, and the full extent participation by bureaucrats and ordinary citizens, this book is the best by far.

After nearly half a century, Hilberg's monumental work continues to be the standard work in the field. Hilberg's research methods, his attention to context, and his literary genius continues to inspire new generations of historians. The first college lecture I ever gave--on the Holocaust--was based on this book in conjunction with Arendt's "Banality of Evil." Of course, you must read "Destruction" in tandem with Hilberg's heart-wrenching memoir "Politics of Memory" to grasp fully the triumphs and tragedies of the greatest Holocaust historian.

This three-volume 2003 edition summarizes a broad selection of data. It arrives at 5.1 million for the Jews killed during the Holocaust. This death toll is also subdivided by year of death, by European nationality of the Jewish victims, and by fate (extermination camp followed by cremation in a crematorium or pyre, open-air shooting and burial, etc.). This work also contains a list of Nuremberg defendants, and their associates, along with identification of those held directly responsible for the fate of the Jews.

A considerable amount of time is spent discussing how the Germans had gradually perfected the technology of genocide. Mass shootings gave way to mass gassings using the carbon monoxide from the burning of fuel by large engines. This was replaced with Zyklon, a pelleted form of hydrogen cyanide. It was found that the burning of bodies in large pyres disposed of them quicker than the crematory ovens. To hasten the disposal of the murder victims, their bodies were not usually burned completely to ashes. Some death camps pulverized the bones of the victims with special bone-crushing machines, while other camps just used slaves bearing hammers to do the gruesome job.

The Jewish death toll at Auschwitz-Birkenau is currently estimated as fewer than 1 million. This contrasts with earlier estimates of 1.5 million, 1.2 million, etc. This should be of no comfort to Holocaust deniers, as the present estimate, and overall Jewish death toll, is unlikely to be reduced any further, at least to a substantial extent. However, it does ask for an explanation for the discrepancies with earlier estimates, and none is provided.

Although a full examination of the Jewish relationship with Poles in German-occupied Poland is beyond the scope of this volume, Hilberg presents some information that sheds light on this relationship. He cites a German document wherein its author complains about the fact that Jews avoiding the roundups (leading to the death camps of Sobibor and Belzec) are hiding with Polish and Ukrainian families. He acknowledges the fact that the death penalty was imposed in Poland for aiding Jews (p. 520). He also points out (p. 1122) the extreme housing density of gentile Poles (4 per apartment in prewar Poland; no doubt greater during the German occupation) and its role in the disinclination of Poles to hide fugitive Jews.

Recurrent charges of Poles turning in or killing fugitive Jews, commonly encountered in Holocaust materials, neglect a number of factors, one of which is the latter's significant involvement in the plunder (and sometimes murder) of Polish villagers. Hilberg is one of the few non-Polish authors who acknowledge the fact (p. 1126) that bands of fugitive Jews would rob Polish peasants. The reader can visualize all of German-occupied Poland as one giant concentration camp where its inmates often fought, and sometimes killed each other, over food and other essentials.

It is unfortunate that a Holocaust scholar of Hilberg's stature accepts a shoddy account of the Jedwabne massacre in a totally uncritical manner (pp.320-321). The evidence does not support Gross' storytelling. There were 200-400 Jewish victims, not 1,600. Most definitely, the Germans were not spectators who were just filming what the Poles were doing. Very likely, it was the Germans who orchestrated this atrocity. The Poles were actually relegated to a compelled subsidiary role (perhaps 40 Poles, certainly not "half the town"). The Poles were forced to round up and guard the Jews. Whether the Poles were involved in the actual torching of the Jew-filled barn, consensually or not, has not been established by convincing evidence.

Hilberg moves beyond Jewish deaths to encompass the Sinti and Roma (Gypsies), German male homosexuals, etc. He also discusses the planned partial genocide of the Polish population, wherein a fraction of it would be Germanized or kept alive as a reservoir of slave labor, and the rest put to death. He is also perceptive in pointing out that massive Polish guerrilla action in the Lublin region, in the face of draconian German colonization with concomitant deportation and murder of the local Poles, had been one of the earlier phases of this planned genocide.

Hilberg's work contains a wealth of information. There are also numerous footnotes that enable the reader to do further research.

This is the benchmark upon which all that follow will be measured. Thouroughly researched and well written, this book explains the mechanics...and dynamics of the Holocaust. A must read! END

Hilberg's brilliant and dispassionate treatment of attempts throughout history to destroy the Jews sets a new standard for scholarship and for the historical analysis of emotionally charge subjects. Through his own efficient analytic framework of precedents, antecedents, and scope of organization, Hilberg gives us a lucid formula for both understanding and explaining the subtext, context, and pretext of the 1500-year old continuously running saga of anti-Semitism. The effect is to place the reader in the cockpit of the planners of one of the worst disasters known to man, the holocaust of World War-II. But more importantly, he also provides us with all the necessary facts that go with, and that load his framework.

The context of the holocaust is 1500 years of progressive improvements in ways of addressing the so-called "Jewish problem (or threat)," and corresponding Jewish cultural adaptations to these improved attempts to annihilate them. The improvements have ranged from failed attempts by Catholics to convert Jews into Christians, to expelling them from Europe, to Hitler's creation of a bureaucracy of industrialized death to implement his "final solution." (The author summarizes this progression as conversion, expulsion, and annihilation.)

The subtext of anti-Semitism ostensibly has always been about the "predatory Jewish character" but in fact has been about fears, fears of cultural, religious and ethnic differences and about independence from ordinary orthodoxy. It is precisely these fears that are the most easily serviceable, and most easily ignited into action during times of stress. They are best facilitated through hatred -- especially when guided by a catalyst of evil, ignorance, demagoguery, or demented and corrupt leaders. Inexorably they pass through a process of condoned and sanctioned violence to collective murder. (Fear of Jewish independence and failure to accept the Christian Jesus as their religious messiah and savior have throughout history served as one of the key subtexts of anti-Semitism).

Just as the pattern that serves as the subtext for anti-Semitism is generalizable to other forms of chauvinism, racism and hatred, so too is the pretext: The target is first demonized, dehumanized and vilified; and then disenfranchised, hounded and spatially as well socially segregated. This process of dehumanization then leads logically to, and serves as justification and collective psychological cover for, committing criminal acts against the targeted groups -- including mass industrialized murder. (Jewish religious idolatry, and ethnic character flaws, i.e. their predatory business acumen and slipperiness, their fear of honest work, etc. has throughout history served as the pretext for justifying criminal acts against Jews).

This book puts to rest the popular "magic bullet theory" of the holocaust: that explaining Hitler explains everything anyone would ever need to know about the holocaust. It does not. The anti-Semitic pressures along fault lines leading up to the holocaust had been building up for more than 1500 years. It was these pressures and not Hitler that bear the primary responsibility for the holocaust. Hitler just happened to be the demented catalyst that sparked an anti-Semitic eruption at a time when a demoralized German people needed a tonic for restoring their national pride.

Five Stars.

This book is the benchmark upon which all that follows will be measured. Thouroughly researched and well written, this is a must read for anyone seeking the decisions, mechanics, and dynamics of the Holocaust. END

Although this book was a synopsis of the three volume original writings it provided an insightful look at how the Germans and Nazis systematically wiped out over 5MM Jews during WWII. Most importantly his work showed how the entire bureacacy in the German government was aware of the slaughter which most Germans denied after the war. In addition, Hilberg described the fact the the Jews did not resist much of what was going on to resettlement and utltimate death camps during that period. Interesting book.

This review refers to the 2003 edition, from the most recent publishing run at Yale U. Press. I purchased this book in May, 2011.

This book answers any question you could ever have about WWII and the Holocaust. From the organizational charts to the narrative and the footnotes, everything is cleanly laid out and explored.

Kershaw, Gellately, Wyman, Friedlander and Browning are excellent resources. Hilberg is an amazingly complete and fantastic resource.

My only suggestion is to read both volumes of Victor Klemperer's, I Will Bear Witness, (sorry, the review doesn't allow for underlining), while you are reading Hilberg's Volumes I and II. It's a great way to see the day-to-day real time results of what Hilberg discusses in both volumes.

Uno problemo: The last 27 pages of my Volume II are missing. Twenty-seven pages in Hilberg-land can contain an encyclopedic amount of information. I may never know the exact details and processes of how what finally happened to the Hungarian Jews (the end of Hilberg's semicircular arc) finally happened to them.

Yale U. Press is investigating whether this is just a problem with my Volume II, or a problem with the whole run.

dont think i am qualified to review this fine work, but;this book should be manditory in schools.......along with works on Native Americans & Black
Americans. healing can not take place until we fully deal with some facts about our pasts. as painful as that might be........

This is "it"--the definitive history. At first it seems a bit dry; the typeface is dated and the layout a bit cluttered, but after one reads a paragraph one is drawn in to the history. And this *is* history, not story, not sensationalism. Hilberg wrote this work based on primary research he was hired to do for the United States government. The evolution of the killing methods--from the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) all the way to the factories of death at Auschwitz-Birkenau is carefully and painstakingly researched and reported. This book is true to it title, and gives the history of the Jews' destruction. There are no lurid descriptions or guesses at the psychopathology of Himmler or Heydrich, no subjective treatment of how "it must have been" on the trains--just the details, all of them. If one reads the other famous Holocaust works--_Survival in Auschwitz_, _Night_, _The Auschwitz Album_ (a particularly chilling read, with plenty of photographs)--one really needs this work at one's elbow.