Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto [Paperback]

Tim Cole (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415929695 | ISBN-13: 978-0415929691 | Publication Date: May 18, 2003 | Edition: First

Drawing from the ideas of critical geography and based on extensive archival research, Cole brilliantly reconstructs the formation of the Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust, focusing primarily on the ghetto in Budapest, Hungary--one of the largest created during the war, but rarely examined. Cole maps the city illustrating how spaces--cafes, theaters, bars, bathhouses--became divided in two. Throughout the book, Cole discusses how the creation of this Jewish ghetto, just like the others being built across occupied Europe, tells us a great deal about the nature of Nazism, what life was like under Nazi-occupation, and the role the ghetto actually played in the Final Solution.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Focusing on the Jewish ghetto in Budapest during WWII, Cole (author of the controversial Selling the Holocaust) not only explores the architecture of ghettoization, but also tries to enter the minds of the "ordinary men" who built such places of death. "At the back of my own mind," he writes, "there is an image of an engineer working diligently in an office in Berlin, creating the most efficient door possible for a crematoria oven." Drawing on the groundbreaking work of Robert Jan van Pelt and others, Cole uses architectural history, geography and studies of space and place to explain how the Budapest ghetto was built, how ordinary urban space was converted into a death place, and how architects, engineers, and municipal officials collaborated in the Holocaust. Cole's illuminating approach is scholarly rather than narrative, and some readers will be baffled by his placing of quotation marks around words such as "Jewish" and "non-Jewish," as if to imply these are merely social constructs.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A bold contribution to our understanding of the Shoah. Cole patiently unravels the layered complex of ideological motivations, economic ambitions, social realities and military contingencies that informed the decisions of politicians and officials who set out to separate Jews from gentiles in war-time Budapest. Holocaust City is an important book that, like Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, will inspire a new genre of analysis of the Shoah as the greatest catastrophe western civilization both endured and permitted. -- Robert Jan van Pelt, co-author of Holocaust: A History
Tim Cole's new cultural history takes the study of space, cityscape, and the very role of the ghetto in the mass murder of Europe's Jews to revealing new levels. It will provoke and challenge readers to re-think and re-see the ghetto for what it was-an actual place and way station to death, and something that also had to be imagined conceptually and then graphically designed by the Nazis for their persecution of the Jews. This is a provocative and important book. -- James E. Young, author of The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning
Cole's analysis of the subtle dynamics between state and local policy and the use of space goes a long way towards clarifying how ghettoization became an act of urban planning in Nazi-dominated Europe. -- Paul B. Jaskot, author of The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy
This a unique and interesting study of the phenomenology of the Jewish ghettos of the Nazi era. -- Jewish Book World
A bold contribution to our understanding of the Shoah. Cole patiently unravels the layered complex of ideological motivations, economic ambitions, social realities and military contingencies that informed the decisions of politicians and officials who set out to separate Jews from gentiles in war-time Budapest. Holocaust City is an important book that, like Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, will inspire a new genre of analysis of the Shoah as the greatest catastrophe western civilization both endured and permitted. -- Robert Jan van Pelt, co-author of Holocaust: A History
Tim Cole's new cultural history takes the study of space, cityscape, and the very role of the ghetto in the mass murder of Europe's Jews to revealing new levels. It will provoke and challenge readers to re-think and re-see the ghetto for what it was-an actual place and way station to death, and something that also had to be imagined conceptually and then graphically designed by the Nazis for their persecution of the Jews. This is a provocative and important book. -- -James E. Young, author of The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning
Cole's analysis of the subtle dynamics between state and local policy and the use of space goes a long way towards clarifying how ghettoization became an act of urban planning in Nazi-dominated Europe. -- -Paul B. Jaskot, author of The Architecture of Oppression: The SS, Forced Labor and the Nazi Monumental Building Economy
Tim Cole's new cultural history takes the study of space, cityscape, and the very role of the ghetto in the mass murder of Europe's Jews to revealing new levels. It will provoke and challenge readers to re-think and re-see the ghetto for what it was--an actual place and way station to death, and something that also had to be imagined conceptually and then graphically designed by the Nazis for their persecution of the Jews. This is a provocative and important book. -- James E. Young, author of The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; First edition (May 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415929695
• ISBN-13: 978-0415929691
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,485,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Holocaust City: The Making of the Jewish Ghetto, February 25, 2006

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This review is from: Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto (Paperback)

This is an important work of Holocaust scholarship that explores the role of the local population and local officials in the genocide of Hungarian Jews. Cole is a wonderful writer whose extensive research has resulted in an important addition to the picture we have of how the Holocaust could happen. It contextualizes the "Final Solution" and shows how its implementation in Hungary owed much to local interests and local initiatives.