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Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945 Paperback – September 15, 1993
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateSeptember 15, 1993
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.79 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100060995076
- ISBN-13978-0060995072
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Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; First Edition (September 15, 1993)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0060995076
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060995072
- Item Weight : 10.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.79 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #654,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,226 in Jewish Holocaust History
- #1,477 in German History (Books)
- #5,926 in World War II History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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His writing is clear, there is no baggage or ideology, just a simple desire to tell the story of the 20th century's worst atrocity.
The book is systematic, dealing first with the ideology of Hitler and the senior Nazis who planned the Holocaust and moving on to look at the victims and the perpetrators. Hilberg also describes how many people who were aware of the process of attempted mass murder of all Jews but did little to stop it.
The Russian writer and journalist Vassily Grossman, who was among the first to enter the death camp at Treblinka after liberation, was shocked to learn that just a few dozen SS and a slightly larger group of local armed helpers could gas and bury several thousand victims each day. Hilberg goes further than Grossman to explain how many of the victims were tricked into thinking they were going to resettlement in the East. He also explains how even those who knew their fate were broken long before they were rounded-up for the transports. The erosion of health and self-worth was not sudden; for German Jews the process began in 1933 with Hitler's rise to power and the removal of Jews from the civil service. But Hilberg points out that even by 1936, most German Jews still felt 'German', especially those who had fought with honour in the First World War. For many the turning point, the moment of awful awareness, was in 1938 by which time refuge or escape from the growing violence was harder to achieve.
Some Jews made temporary conversion to Catholicism in the hope of being spared. Sometimes this was successful more often the attempt was exposed. Hilberg describes the revulsion of one atheist Jew, fully aware of his fate, for those who sought protection through false conversion.
Personally I found the most disturbing passage was Hilberg's description of how so many non-Jewish Croats, Latvians, Estonians, Poles and Ukrainians were eager to help the Nazis to clear ghettos, drive gassing vans, shoot women and children in forest clearings and 'finish-off' the Jewish, Gypsy and Russian wounded. Some were motivated by bitterness and hate, especially those who had experienced Russian domination and cruelty before 1941. Many of these people had been victims of Russian excess in their turn and they held Jews responsible for Soviet 'bolshevism'.
Some of the perpetrators were reluctantly drawn into killing and tired of it, making feeble attempts to disengage themselves from the murder machine. But a similar number had a sadistic thirst for it, setting-up gladiatorial contests between inmates, in which both would die. Sometimes the work-camp controllers made prisoners lift huge rocks from one place to another until the strain of this useless work exhausted them. (In his own memoir of being a prisoner in Buchenwald, Bruno Bettleheim points out that this 'hopeless work' was also used by the SS in their own physical training. The difference being that the SS recruit was fit, strong and well fed, the camp inmate starving, weak and louse-ridden).
I found the book too grim to read straight-off. It requires concentration then reflection. It is a dire warning to us that the most mundane of people can be drawn into serving a pathological and vicious regime.
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Holocausto
The subject matter is impartial, direct, balanced and accurate. This material will assist those who wish to understand the Nazi Holocaust in greater detail, as well as the minds of the participants, the nature of their victims. 'Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders' is not a sensationalist account and consequentially will present itself as 'standoffish' at times. Raul is the preeminent academic on the Nazi Holocaust: the subject matter reflects this, juxtaposed to the purposes of distortion. I assert that this work reveals insight and illumination. Hilbergs accomplishment in his work, his study and conclusions are to be commemorated in fact. I salute his honesty, integrity and professionalism.
I recommend this book under the context of a sober reflection of a very serious topic.
Raul HIlberg is a great author, a great historicist and I thank him very much for his awesome work of research during the years.
His writing is clear, there is no baggage or ideology, just a simple desire to tell the story of the 20th century's worst atrocity.
The book is systematic, dealing first with the ideology of Hitler and the senior Nazis who planned the Holocaust and moving on to look at the victims and the perpetrators. Hilberg also describes how so many people, within and outside Germany, who were aware of the process of attempted mass murder of all European Jews, did little to stop it.
The Russian writer and journalist Vassily Grossman, who was among the first to enter the death camp at Treblinka after liberation, was shocked to learn that just a few dozen SS and a slightly larger group of local armed helpers could gas and bury several thousand victims each day. Hilberg goes further than Grossman to explain how many of the victims were tricked into thinking they were going to resettlement in the East. He also explains how even those who knew their fate were 'broken' long before they were rounded-up for the transports.
The erosion of health and self-worth was not sudden; for German Jews the process began in 1933 with Hitler's rise to power and the removal of Jews from the civil service. But Hilberg points out that even by 1936, most German Jews still felt 'German', especially those who had fought with honour in the First World War. For many the turning point, the moment of awful awareness, was in 1938, by which time refuge or escape from the growing violence was harder to achieve.
Some Jews made temporary conversion to Catholicism in the hope of being spared. Sometimes this was successful more often the attempt was exposed. Hilberg describes the revulsion of one atheist Jew, fully aware of his fate, for those who sought protection through false conversion.
Personally I found the most disturbing passage was Hilberg's description of how so many non-Jewish nationals in Nazi occupied Europe; Croats, Dutch, Latvians, Estonians, Poles and Ukrainians were eager to help the Nazis to clear ghettos, drive gassing vans, shoot women and children in forest clearings and 'finish-off' the Jewish, Gypsy and Russian wounded. Yet Danes did not 'turn-in' their Jewish neighbours, it seems. Some collaborators were motivated by bitterness and hate, especially those who had experienced Russian domination and cruelty before 1941. Many of these people had been victims of Russian excess in their turn and they held Jews responsible for Soviet 'bolshevism'.
Some of the perpetrators were reluctantly drawn into killing and soon tired of it, making feeble attempts to disengage themselves from the murder machine. But a similar number had a sadistic thirst for it, setting-up gladiatorial contests between inmates, in which both would die. Sometimes the work-camp controllers made prisoners lift huge rocks from one place to another until the strain of this useless work exhausted them. (In his own memoir of being a prisoner in Buchenwald, Bruno Bettleheim points out that this 'hopeless work' was also used by the SS in their own physical training. The difference being that the SS recruit was fit, strong and well fed, the camp inmate starving, weak and louse-ridden).
I found the book too grim to read straight-off. It requires concentration then reflection. It is a dire warning to us that the most mundane of people can be drawn into serving a pathological and vicious regime.







