Politics of Genocide [Hardcover]

Randolph Braham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0880332476 | ISBN-13: 978-0880332477 | Edition: Rev Enl Su

The definitive account of the tragedy that befell Hungarian Jewry during the Nazi era.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The earlier majestic editions of The Politics of Genocide provided the English-speaking public with vivid and accurate information on European Jewrys ultimate tragedy, the Holocaust in Hungary, which took place less than a year before the end of World War II. -- Istvan Deak, Columbia University

[T]his book will bring the history of the Holocaust in Hungary to a wide range of readers: scholars, teachers, undergraduates and graduate students. -- Sidney Bolkosky, University of MichiganDearborn --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Randolph Braham is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The Graduate School of The City University of New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 2200 pages
• Publisher: East European Monographs; Rev Enl Su edition (October 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880332476
• ISBN-13: 978-0880332477
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 4.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,767,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As thorough a documentation as possible, October 13, 2010

By 

R. L. Huff "An old reader" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Politics of Genocide : The Holocaust in Hungary (Hardcover)

Professor Braham's dissection of the Hungarian phase of the Holocaust is masterful in scope and depth, even in the condensed version. The tragedy of Hungary's Jews is perhaps the most poignant of all, in that the community ran the emotional extremes from complacency to terror, euphoria to despair, in such a compressed time.

Also telling is the attitude of the non-Jewish majority. For every Nazi collaborator eagerly assisting the roundups, deportations, or worse, there was another Hungarian doing what s/he could to resist it, although few engaged in the kind of active resistance that could have stymied the Germans or rescued Jews or overthrown the Horthy regime. The Admiral himself is a fit symbol of the country's and its majority's moral legacy: while opposing the deportations once it became incontestible what the Germans really meant by "resettlement," his reactionary prejudices still encouraged and enabled Nazi plans until it was too late to stop them.

The author skirts the delicate issue of collaboration on the part of local, regional, and especially the national Jewish Councils. He hesitates to say so, but it is obvious that the aristocratic leadership of the Hungarian Jewish community felt little regard for the "common Jews" of the community, especially its "foreign element." Like true aristocrats they identified the community with their own persona and willingly sacrificed its "common members" to buy time, believing that by saving themselves they were thereby "saving Jewry." The opportunism is all the more uglier in its exploitation by Eichmann, giving the Council its crucial role in pacifying and deceiving the Hungarian Jewish community into cooperation up to boarding the very trains for Auschwitz.

One of the best local surveys of the Holocaust, and likely the best ever to be written on Hungary.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compensation for Hungarian Holocaust Survivors, August 9, 2001

By 

L. Grant "northcomet" (Huntington Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary (Paperback)

This book has proven extraordinarily useful in documenting the experiences of Hungarian Holocaust survivors for the purposes of restitution claims. Hungarian Holocaust survivors are routinely caught in a restitution Catch-22: how long were you persecuted by the Hungarians versus how long were you persecuted by the Germans and who's responsible? Usually, these survivors fall between the historical cracks. Without books like this one, wherein extensive research has been done on this particular point of Holocaust history, not ALL of these survivors are falling through the cracks. On behalf of my clients, the survivors, I thank the author wholeheartedly for this extraordinary resource.