Customer Reviews

The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945

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This seminal classic historical work by scholar and teacher Lucy Dawidowicz is a stunning book that both graphically and systematically spells out the details of the horrifying war of annihilation forged against the European Jews by the Third Reich. In a world that seen so much published regarding this subject, this work stands as benchmark. Ms. Dawidowicz addresses herself to the most fundamental of questions regarding this unspeakable policy of ritual race murder; how could a modern, sophisticated and industrial country such as Germany have perpetrated such a deliberate reign of horror against a whole people simply because they were Jewish? And, although we have seen recent books such as "Problem From Hell" that deal more systematically with the issue of modern examples of state sponsored genocide, the simple fact is that the Holocaust seems to have occurred because, for the first time in modern history, it was both politically and logistically possible. In other words, the Nazis had both the method and the impetus to do the unspeakable.

Seen in this fashion, the equation becomes at once political, social, and technological; given the irrational impulse to do so, the modern Nazi regime was able to harness all of its energies, spiritual, political and material, into such a devastating and sustained campaign against the Jews, and was therefore uniquely able to forge the most bloody of final results. The author's approach winds the reader through several phases of the Holocaust phenomenon with a careful, meticulous and methodical consideration of the social, economic, and political influences swirling through this witches' brew of evil. In the first part of the book, entitled "The Final Solution", she traces the origins and growth of anti-Semitism, a form of patent racism so virulent it threatened to exterminate the Jews from all of continental Europe. In so tracing the roots and origins of the Nazis and their fellow travelers, she shows how the rise of National Socialism revolved around the scapegoating of the Jews.

The execution of this plan was enacted in the ghettos and small towns of Poland and Germany as well as in a network of forced labor camps and concentration camps throughout Eastern Europe. In the second part of the book, ""The Holocaust", the author dramatically describes how the plight of the Jews was gradually worsened and how the violence and deprivation grew systematically more and more horrible with each passing month. Inhabitants of camps or ghettos led lives of incredible hardship and deprivation, struggling helplessly against hunger, disease, exposure to extremes of temperature and weather, and of course, to the wanton cruelties of the Nazi regime. This is indeed interesting material, detailing the ways in which Jewish groups both within the ghettos and the death camps worked together to make the best out of an impossible situation.

This is a heart-rending book, one that accurately portrays the ways in which Jews were deceived and betrayed by the authorities, convinced they were being resettled rather than being slated for extermination. Ms. Dawidowicz writes with compassion and authority covering this intrinsically difficult issues, as one reads of lives torn asunder, families ripped apart, and wholesale rape, mutilation, and murder. This book, published more than thirty years ago, is one of the most comprehensive, best documented, and well-written book to have appeared on the subject of the Holocaust. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in the subject.

This book provides a good detail of how the German leadership convinced itself that genocide was not only correct and legal, but a necessity for their survival. I thought the book was going to be a description of one atrocity after another, but it provides the reader with more of the details of why it was happening. Don't get me wrong, there is enough of the horror represented here. I would have liked a larger review of all of the holocaust crimes across Europe, but there are limits to the size of any one book. This book is a good start to find out why it happened.

Ms. Dawidowiczs managed to hold me through the grim realities of the shoa as no other author has. I believe it to be the definative text on the development of European, and particularly German anti-semitism. I wish I had read it twenty years ago. She explains how the enlightenment notions of individual autonomy challanged the notions of the clan and ethnic nationalism held so tightly by the Nazis. Hitler reject his own Catholic background, from which the enlightenment had arisen. He replaced the God of the Jews and Christians with the Gods of Nordic mythology. Individuals were of no importance in Hitler's world view only the tribe mattered. Dawidowiczs explains how Hitler found fertile territory for his avowed hatred of Jewry in Europes long history of anti-semitism. She explains in frightening detail how Hitler took anti-semitism into the land of terror. Hitler, as she explains, used the ideals of ethnicity and tribalism to convince Germans that they were under attack from within by a virus called Judaism that would destroy them if they did not destroy the Jews first. Hence "the final solution". Dawidowiczs style is reader friendly. She manages to pull the reader along through horrible subject matter with clear and precise prose. The use of charts and graphs to show the decline in pre and post war Jewry is staggering and a great illustration of the ferocity of Natzi hatred and fear. How ironic that the Nazi motive for the murder of Jews was that they were afraid of them. Nordic supermen notwithstanding, their pathological fear lead to slaughter. All serious students of the 20th century should read this book.

Although an ocean of material has been written about the Holocaust, this book stands alone. The author has chosen the best way to present the material; by simple factual recitation. No amount of pejoratives would suffice, and even one would cheapen the book. Salut!!!!!!!!

Davidowicz examines the underpinnings of pan-European anti-Semitism, its "legitimization" by the Third Reich, its consequences on the victims, and the awful results masterfully. Especially excellent are the sections on why so little resistance was offered until the end, when resistance was a gesture, not a viable tactic.

You will never forget the first mayor of the Warsaw ghetto, Adam Czerniakow. This book is unforgettable, and earns the highest rating possible.

This very well written history of the origins and progession of the Holocaust has much to recommend to it. It provides a strong and concise overview of Naziism and advances the disturbing but plausible idea that World War II was intended in part as a cover for the Holocaust to come. It offers a chilling look inside the ghettos of Eastern Europe and shows how wretched life was and also how life didn't stop immediately despite the horrors heaped upon the Jews. Where she forcuses her attention, she provides a strong and complete overview.

However, the book stops at the gates of the death camps and at the western boundaries of Germany. While an appendix touches on the fate of all of Europe's Jews, the body of the work leaves out the progression of atrocities in Western and Southern Europe. Maybe there was little to say as most of the Jews ended up in the ghettos but she doesn't make it clear till the appendix. And she makes no effort to talk about like in the labor camps or death camps. While there was little to talk of but doom and the barest hope of survival, many books since have covered this topic, so I wonder why she didn't.

Still, this work makes an excellent overview to the Holocaust, to the inhumanity of the Germans, and to the efforts, no matter how small, by the Jews to never surrender.

Hitler. The very name seems to invoke black and white images of a charasmatic madman pushing his country to global domination. But the story goes much deeper than that. His intense hatred of the Jews pushed him to implement his "Final Solution". To exploit and then kill every Jew in Europe before they, in his twisted mind, did the same to every one else.
Thankfully, his "appointed" task was never completed. But not before nearly six million Jews and countless others who either resisted or simply didn't conform to his Ideas of the perfect human were destroyed.
This is the story of those Jews who died and those survived the largest mass murder in recorded history. These are the things they didn't show or talk about in Public School. This book shows the strength and weakness of a people on the edge of anihalation. It doesn't show the Jews as a strong race overcoming their problems, or as a weak race sniveling and grovelling, waiting to die. It shows them as any other group of humans reacting to their circumstances in a wide variety of ways.
This is probably the longest time I have ever spent reading a book. After reading a page or two (especially in the second half of the book), I would generally have to put it down for a few days to read some lighter material. Overall I think it took me about nine to ten months to read. But I would definatly put it in the best books I have read.
So, if you are looking to understand what was happening to the Jews during WW2, or if you are just looking to fill in some of the gaps from history class, then I would heartily recomend this brilliant work.

This work is still considered by many to be one of the best books written about the 'Holocaust.' It goes into great detail explaining the roots of the Nazi, and specifically Hitler's determination to destroy the Jewish people. It shows how the program to destroy the Jews went hand-in- hand with the Third Reich''s overall effort to conquer Europe.
It also goes into great detail describing the destructions and terrible suffering the Jews went through in various communities in Europe.
It in short describes the roots and execution of what is arguably the greatest crime in human history, the deliberate Nazi effort to destroy an entire people, wherever they were on earth.

Anyone looking for a single volume history of the Holocaust should start with this one. It is not an easy read, but it is informative and works well as a reference book. The table of contents sets up the material well, though it is by no means encyclopedic. The writing is straight forward, allowing the facts to speak so that readers make value judgments for themselves. The starkness of the tone serves as a reminder of how the Third Reich went about its final solution to the Jewish question, business as usual. Those of us who read it as an assigned text for an Issues in the Study of the Holocaust class found it somewhat dry at times, but our own outrage at how an "advanced society" could do such things made up for any tediousness of the book.

My 20 year old copy holds a place of honor on my shelf of frequently used history books.

At a family gathering, a relative of mine asked the question "why didn't the Jews fight back in a more organized way during WWII?" Not having an immediate answer, I went in search of one, which this book supplied. The background of the philosophical underpinnings, as well as the reasons for the way the Jewish community reacted, enhanced my knowledge of the Holocaust immensely, and have led to many other readings. Very accessible.

Maybe you watched "The Killing Fields" (Cambodia), "Hotel Rwanda", or "Amistad". If you didn't, you must have seen a few films about the Holocaust. I saw a few, long ago, but for the last many years I've avoided them because they are just too painful. I've read a lot about that terrible era in human history, I've known people who lived through it, and there are museums all over America dedicated to preserving the memory of what happened. For the education of younger generations, this is good. For myself, I can't bear it. When faced with not only evil, but stupidity, rigid, unswerving bigotry, and lies---lies, bigotry and stupidity that led to the extermination of nearly six million people as a national goal, I find myself overwhelmed. But still, after all, I thought I should read THE WAR AGAINST THE JEWS one day and actually bought it a dozen years ago. I could never sum up the courage to begin. At last the day arrived and I picked up the book and started reading. I read of the poisonous, vicious lies that circulated in Germany and Europe before the Final Solution became a reality, I read of Hitler's view of Jews (I'd read `Mein Kampf' forty years ago, so this was not exactly new territory) and the anti-Semitism that lurked under German rocks for a long time before streaming out to cause the Holocaust. I reflected on how all these stupid lies still exist; some moral perverts still propagate them. You can find their sites on the Internet. My mental state began to decline, everything began to look gray, then black, I found myself full of anger and hatred. I don't want to be that person---I refuse to be that person. I closed the book, and I didn't read further, but I assure you, it's all here in carefully documented order. If you doubt me, read some of the other reviews. I don't think I have a lot to add. When people deny the Holocaust, it's like denying that dinosaurs ever existed, that the world is round, or that Obama is a Christian. They tried to kill all the Jews. They managed to do a lot. But we are still here !! Life ! L'khayyim ! If you can read this book, you are just tougher than me. But if you really want to know, you have come to the right place.