Debating the Holocaust

Debating the Holocaust PDF

Author: Thomas Dalton

Publisher:

Published: 2021-08-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781591489542

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For the past few decades there has been raging a kind of subterranean debate, one of monumental importance. It is a debate about the Holocaust - not whether or not it "happened" (this is a meaningless claim), but rather, how it happened, through what means, and to what extent. On the one hand we have the traditional, orthodox view: the six million Jewish casualties, the gas chambers, the cremation ovens and mass graves. On the other hand there is a small, renegade band of writers and researchers who refuse to accept large parts of this story. These revisionists, as they call themselves, present counter-evidence and ask tough questions. Among the issues they raise are these: There is no trace of a 'Hitler order' to exterminate the Jews; key witnesses have either falsified or greatly exaggerated important aspects of their stories; major death camps - Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka - have all but vanished; we find little evidence of disturbed earth for mass graves; we find few remains of the millions of alleged victims - neither bones nor ash; mass-gassing with Zyklon-B would be nearly impossible without ventilators and ceiling holes; mass-gassing with diesel engine exhaust is practically impossible, given the low level of carbon monoxide; wartime air photos of Auschwitz show none of the alleged mass-burnings or cremations; the '6 million' number has no basis in fact, and actually traces back decades before the war; trends in Jewish world population strongly suggest less than 6 million lost; and the present number of "survivors" - currently over 1 million - implies few wartime deaths. The revisionists arrive at a different account. Hitler, they say, wanted to expel the Jews, not kill them. The ghettos and concentration camps served primarily for ethnic cleansing and forced labor, not mass murder. The Zyklon gas chambers did in fact exist, but were used for delousing and sanitary purposes. And most important, the Jewish death toll was much lower than commonly assumed - on the order of 500,000. In this book, for the FIRST TIME EVER, the reader can now judge for himself. Arguments and counter-arguments for both sides are presented, and all relevant facts are laid out in a clear and concise manner. The entire debate is presented in a scholarly and non-polemical fashion. Citations are marked, and facts are checked. READ, and JUDGE FOR YOURSELF.

Remembering the Holocaust

Remembering the Holocaust PDF

Author: Jeffrey C. Alexander

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-07-27

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0199716943

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Remembering the Holocaust explains why the Holocaust has come to be considered the central event of the 20th century, and what this means. Presenting Jeffrey Alexander's controversial essay that, in the words of Geoffrey Hartman, has already become a classic in the Holocaust literature, and following up with challenging and equally provocative responses to it, this book offers a sweeping historical reconstruction of the Jewish mass murder as it evolved in the popular imagination of Western peoples, as well as an examination of its consequences. Alexander's inquiry points to a broad cultural transition that took place in Western societies after World War II: from confidence in moving past the most terrible of Nazi wartime atrocities to pessimism about the possibility for overcoming violence, ethnic conflict, and war. The Holocaust has become the central tragedy of modern times, an event which can no longer be overcome, but one that offers possibilities to extend its moral lessons beyond Jews to victims of other types of secular and religious strife. Following Alexander's controversial thesis is a series of responses by distinguished scholars in the humanities and social sciences--Martin Jay, Bernhard Giesen, Michael Rothberg, Robert Manne, Nathan Glazer, and Elihu & Ruth Katz--considering the implications of the universal moral relevance of the Holocaust. A final response from Alexander in a postscript focusing on the repercussions of the Holocaust in Israel concludes this forthright and engaging discussion. Remembering the Holocaust is an all-too-rare debate on our conception of the Holocaust, how it has evolved over the years, and the profound effects it will have on the way we envision the future.

Debates on the Holocaust

Debates on the Holocaust PDF

Author: Tom Lawson

Publisher: Issues in Historiography

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13:

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Debates on the Holocaust is the first attempt to survey the development of Holocaust historiography for a generation. It analyses the development of history writing on the destruction of the European Jews from just before the end of the Second World War to the present day, and argues forcefully that history writing is as much about the present as it is the past. The book guides the reader through the major debates in Holocaust historiography and shows how all of these controversies are as much products of their own time as they are attempts to uncover the past. Debates on the Holocaust will appeal to sixth form and undergraduate students and their teachers, Holocaust historians and anyone interested in either the destruction of the European Jews or in the process by which we access and understand the past.

Remembering the Holocaust

Remembering the Holocaust PDF

Author: Jeffrey C. Alexander

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2009-07-27

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0195326229

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This book brings together a wide range of leading historians, social scientists, and literary scholars to explore the controversy surrounding the legacy of the Holocaust. Jeffrey Alexander's essay traces how the Holocaust gradually became the dominant representation of evil, and what the consequences have been for the development of its moral relevance for all nations and peoples. His inquiry is joined by essays from Martin Jay, Nathan Glazer, Elihu and Ruth Katz, Michael Rothberg, Robert Manne, and Bernhard Giesen, who further debate the geopolitical, national, and cultural limits and dangers of extending the tragic lessons of the Holocaust.

Debates on the Holocaust

Debates on the Holocaust PDF

Author: Don Nardo

Publisher: Referencepoint Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781682823675

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The mass systematic murder of more than six million of Europe's Jews by the Third Reich, headed by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, during World War II shocked the world and remains an often examined and discussed example of attempted genocide. Through he narrative-driven pro/con format-supported by relevant facts, quotes, and anecdotes-this book examines controversial issues stemming from historic events. Topics include: Was Adolf Hitler the Primary Force Behind the Holocaust? Could Europe's Jews Have Put Up More Resistance to Nazi Aggression? Could the Allies Have Reduced the Severity of the Holocaust? Were the Nuremburg Trials Legally and Morally Justified?

Denying the Holocaust

Denying the Holocaust PDF

Author: Deborah Lipstadt

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-12-18

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1476727481

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The denial of the Holocaust has no more credibility than the assertion that the earth is flat. Yet there are those who insist that the death of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps is nothing but a hoax perpetrated by a powerful Zionist conspiracy. Sixty years ago, such notions were the province of pseudohistorians who argued that Hitler never meant to kill the Jews, and that only a few hundred thousand died in the camps from disease; they also argued that the Allied bombings of Dresden and other cities were worse than any Nazi offense, and that the Germans were the “true victims” of World War II. For years, those who made such claims were dismissed as harmless cranks operating on the lunatic fringe. But as time goes on, they have begun to gain a hearing in respectable arenas, and now, in the first full-scale history of Holocaust denial, Deborah Lipstadt shows how—despite tens of thousands of living witnesses and vast amounts of documentary evidence—this irrational idea not only has continued to gain adherents but has become an international movement, with organized chapters, “independent” research centers, and official publications that promote a “revisionist” view of recent history. Lipstadt shows how Holocaust denial thrives in the current atmosphere of value-relativism, and argues that this chilling attack on the factual record not only threatens Jews but undermines the very tenets of objective scholarship that support our faith in historical knowledge. Thus the movement has an unsuspected power to dramatically alter the way that truth and meaning are transmitted from one generation to another.

Debates on the Holocaust

Debates on the Holocaust PDF

Author: Tom Lawson

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1847793215

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Debates on the Holocaust is the first attempt to survey the development of Holocaust historiography for a generation. It analyses the development of history writing on the destruction of the European Jews from just before the end of the Second World War to the present day, and argues forcefully that history writing is as much about the present as it is the past. The book guides the reader through the major debates in Holocaust historiography and shows how all of these controversies are as much products of their own time as they are attempts to uncover the past. Debates on the Holocaust will appeal to sixth form and undergraduate students and their teachers, Holocaust historians and anyone interested in either the destruction of the European Jews or in the process by which we access and understand the past.

Debating Genocide

Debating Genocide PDF

Author: Lisa Pine

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-11-01

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1350035459

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This book explores the subject of genocide through key debates and case studies. It analyses the dynamics of genocide – the processes and mechanisms of acts committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, religious or racial group – in order to shed light upon its origins, characteristics and consequences. Debating Genocide begins with an introduction to the concept of genocide. It then examines the colonial genocides at the end of the 19th- and start of the 20th-centuries; the Armenian Genocide of 1915-16; the Nazi 'Final Solution'; the Nazi genocide of the Gypsies; mass murder in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge; the genocides in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; and the genocide in Sudan in the early 21st century. It also includes a thematic chapter which covers gender and genocide, as well as issues of memory and memorialisation. Finally, the book considers how genocides end, as well as the questions of resolution and denial, with Lisa Pine examining the debates around prediction and prevention and the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) initiative. This book is crucial for any students wanting to understand why genocides have occurred, why they still occur and what the key historical discussions around this subject entail.

Law, History, and Justice

Law, History, and Justice PDF

Author: Annette Weinke

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2018-12-17

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1789201063

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Since the nineteenth century, the development of international humanitarian law has been marked by complex entanglements of legal theory, historical trauma, criminal prosecution, historiography, and politics. All of these factors have played a role in changing views on the applicability of international law and human-rights ideas to state-organized violence, which in turn have been largely driven by transnational responses to German state crimes. Here, Annette Weinke gives a groundbreaking long-term history of the political, legal and academic debates concerning German state and mass violence in the First World War, during the National Socialist era and the Holocaust, and under the GDR.