The Holocaust is an often told story. Hundreds if not thousands of books are written about it. This book, "Eichmann in Jerusalem" has to be the book to read on the subject. The book tells the story of Adolph EIchmann's trial in Jersusalem for crimes committed in the Holocaust during WWII. This is a trial for a person who personally did not kill one Jew. He was a mere Lt. Colonel in a huge bureaucracy, buried deep down in the organizational chart. How can that be? I think the answers in the book chill the average person to the bone. It touches on some subjects out of history that are very dark. It also is frighteningly real for today's world. I know that alone will scare most as well as any haunted house they go through.
This book flows very well. The author keeps the flow moving fast from chapter to chapter. She tells you the who on Eichmann, why it was important then in 1963, and goes over the events of the Holocaust. Her information comes straight from the trial transcripts. That adds a new angle to the event, closer to the timeline. I think that adds a lot to the story.
Overall the book is a great history of the Holocaust. It will give you facts that you haven't read before. These facts rattled the world then and I think it would now to anyone who reads it.
The book explains the whole final solution in intimate detail. It walks you through how it started as mercy killings due to low quality of life to a very large complex state owned machine. The book doesn't fill you will the horrible stories. It gives you the bureaucratic dry explanation on how the system worked. You learned how the elite was very much behind the process. That alone is something few other books offer. Through this line you learn that Eichmann was the person who made the whole system run. He made it run as only a Lt. Colonel buried in the bureaucracy who controlled very little. His office got the trains to put the Jews on. Then he coordinated with the camps to take the Jews. He did not run the camps himself. The Nazis also used the local Jews to make their system run. It was their local government which choose the names and Jews at gunpoint which guided them to the chambers in many camps. Their succession of lies to the Jews about a better tomorrow was a critical fuel that made the system run. Everyone would either trade in their neighbor or hung on in hope of a better tomorrow. German society also bore a piece of the guilt. Whole institutions jumped on board to make things happen.
Hannah Arendt also gives you the context from the period. Why the Israeli's conducted trail and the reaction from the world. The process of the trial in a way shaped world attitudes even to today. It brought out the horror of the system out of the shadows to see it was more than a mix of personal stories but it was a state sanctioned machine. I think it explained the system which no one on on the outside understood.
There is one thing from the book I know will upset people. The question today is how can people do this? Why would people do this. The book explains who Eichmann was. He started as a private in the SS. He was an average worker in Germany before that; a salesman. He moved up the SS chain quickly through hard work and taking full advantage of opportunities as they came. He probably would have moved to the top of any bureaucracy, Walmart, Exon, Ford, as he did with the SS. The only difference was then the mission was the Holocaust vs. selling odds and ends at Walmart. His story shows the importance of morals vs. just a good job. He was just a career climber in the business of the day. You can see how this principle of career success alone, outside of morals turns people into monsters. That element alone is what people can see happening tomorrow but won't admit it. That do that because they fear they too might do the same thing to advance or know someone who will.
This book
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