The Holocaust: A New History

From my FB page, Race for EqualityLaurence Reec’s book, “The Holocaust: A New History”, is hands down one of the best books I’ve ever read on the topic. While there were a handful of logistical venues he discussed, the vast majority of the text focused on the horrors within the camp as well as several eyewitness testimonies. Although the book can easily be read in well under a week, it is divided into eighteen categorical, chronological succinctly written chapters, beginning in Hitler’s WWI years and ending on his suicide on May 7th, 1945.Oddly enough, as much I genuinely appreciated reading this book, it’s scope is just narrow enough that it is difficult to give an broad analysis. As usual, however, I will present three aspects of the text I found worth noting. First, as mentioned above, was simply the “historical” view of Hitler’s rise to power. Each chapter divides the book into specific years from roughly 1919 when he was discharged from the military, to his consolidation of power, his strategic course to WWII, to the downfall of the Third Reich.(As an aside, many have criticized me for my love of history, even social history. The greatest value I find in this kind of study is that the history sets a precedent for analyzing patterns that occur in present times, no differently than examining one’s own history to find understand who we are and why we do the things we do. In other words, when we understand our past, we have a conscientious litmus for our present and future. No other discipline has quite the same power to shape us in this way.)The second thing I found interesting is how Reec provided insight into the man, Adolf Hitler. While the author did not offer an expansive perspective in this arena, he certainly interjected his opinion in subtle ways throughout his book. In fact, the first chapter, “Origins of Hate”, is one of the longer chapters and it covers much of Hitler’s psychological wiring and magnetic personality. Much like Saul Friedlander and Ian Kershaw, Reec also examines (though not with the same depth) the [disjointed] political structure.To be clear, I am saying that as the events of the Holocaust unfolded, there was a sense that it happened not out cold calculation from the beginning but rather in a movement in spite of Hitler’s rise to power and fanatic antisemitism. This is true not because the political power structure was in any way was disorganized but many of the “laws” and orders were never written down or they were given euphemistically. The “Final Solution” being the most famous euphemism of all.Finally, the obvious: the tragic uniqueness that of the Holocaust that played its role in WWII. I would argue that while on the surface it appears that the Holocaust was an independent variable of the war, Hitler and his racist goons made the two intricately inseparable. Throughout the life of the Third Reich, Hitler, his military advisers, his confidants, and even the common “volk”, all served as strong arch by fanning the flames that Jews and Communism were tightly linked. In other words, Hitler used the Jews as a way to explain why Communism existed in the first place (and ironically, capitalism) and that fighting a war against Communism could never be effective if Jews were not exterminated. The lines between the eradication of Communism and Judaism were too blurred to find a “solution” for one without the other, in a very similar way a racist would argue that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War.I can guarantee that I will be reading most of Reec’s books and if you have any interest in the Holocaust, I can not give him enough praise for his intelligence and wisdom on the subject. He is straightforward, clear, and his writing is anything but pretentious. I highly recommend him as an author.

As the Holocaust recedes into the rear view mirror of history and we lose Holocaust survivors daily, it's tempting to put such a crime - a crime that almost defies English to describe it - away in a mental box. It's just not pleasant to think about, and it could never happen again in our day and age. Shoot - even "Schindler's List," released almost fifty years after the Holocaust ended, is now almost thirty years old.But as recent developments around the world tell us, we do not appear capable of leaving cruelty and scapegoating behind. Minorities are persecuted . . . locked up, starved and killed . . . today.And so it is that we need to remember the Holocaust and try to understand it, even if the Holocaust defies understanding in so many ways.To that end, I highly recommend Laurence Rees' "The Holocaust: A New History." While thoroughly researched and documented, this single volume history of the Holocaust is extremely readable (well, there are times you want to put the book down, but that's from the emotional toll rather than any shortcomings of the writing). The book seeks to trace the evolution of the Holocaust from fringe idea to shockingly efficient procedures. In other words, how did the evils believed only by a few become an organizing principle for a society?Rees reminds us that if you asked a European Jew in 1930 which country was the most likely to adopt a systemic anti-Semitic program, Germany might have been among the last countries picked. Other countries, such as Russia, had a much longer history of systemic abuse of their Jewish population. Germany was relatively liberal towards Jews, as reflected in the sizable population of German Jews. Yes, there were restrictions on professions and so on, but even prominent Nazis had Jewish friends and family . . . sometimes to an awkward degree.Tracing the foundation of the Holocaust to a small group of proto-Nazis and Nazis, including several of the early influences on Hitler, Rees documents how rapidly the Nazis evolved from fringe lunatics to the core of the German political system. Capitalizing on wounded pride, economic catastrophe, and a lagging fatigue from the First World War, the Nazis grabbed power with both hands and exploited one of the most cynical aspects of human nature - our ability to tolerate the abuse of another if I benefit.Rees tracks the evolution of the Holocaust as the Nazis rise to power, through the outbreak of World War II and through the collapse of Germany. He puts the Nazis' arguments front and center, quoting from speeches and correspondence as Hitler and his cronies blame Jews and Bolsheviks for Germany's woes and then take action - from ghettoes to labor camps to death camps. Rees also dives into the personal stories of individual Jews to illustrate the depravity of the Holocaust as well as explore different treatment of the Jews in different countries - for example, the reader gets to confront the awkward question of why Jews fared far better in Italy (one of the Axis allies) than its neighbor, Greece.Unbearably gruesome details are in these pages, and there are times that you need to put the book down and go for a walk. But this is not horror for horror's sake, but a history of what transpired. Rees wants us to understand the cost of looking the other way, of blaming the victim (one survivor tells of the insults thrown by Israeli Jews after the Holocaust - "how could you allow that to happen? You meekly submitted - *we* never would have!"), and of assuming that "it can't be that bad."Largely focused on European affairs, Rees' book necessarily cuts off certain lines of inquiry in its effort to be a single volume history - FDR's leadership and decisions during the Holocaust is just one example of a heated debate with its own bibliography, but FDR is not a focal point of this analysis. Nevertheless, this is a tremendous effort and a highly recommended contribution to Holocaust scholarship.

I highly recommended this book. It is a very comprehensive, extensively researched and updated account of the worst crime in history. Denying or ignoring the Holocaust puts us at increased risk for repeating it. It is curious that while a few instances of non-Jews saving Jews are mentioned, there is no mention of the two that have been the most popularized, Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg. It is also interesting that the perpetrators of the "final solution" on which the author seems to lay the most blame are Hitler, Goebbels and the SS and SD leaders. Goring and the Wehrmacht just get a slap on the wrist in the book. Yet Goring, Jodl and Keitel were all sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials not just for their involvement in military war crimes but for involvement in the final solution. I think these three men did not have as firm a conviction in the total extermination of the Jews as Hitler, Himmler, etc. They were just content to run the war and, in the case of Goring, to amass a large art collection and let the more committed Jew haters take the blame.

An extensive and detailed account of the build-up to what we now call the Holocaust. The author demonstrates that this tragic event was not the result of one man's deluded and demonic anti-semitism but was the result of the actions of series of actions and "experiments" by local pockets of anti-Jewish fervour led by a mixture of characters. Their motives varied from racism,revenge for a (wrongly) perceived result of the Jews having caused the German defeat in W.W.1, and the resulting economic collapse of Germany, to out-and-out bullying turning to sadism and seeking self-promotion and currying favour with the Reich's leaders. As the intensity of hatred and brainwashing propaganda stoked up such emotions, it also instilled a fear of reprisals should one not agree.A well-written and balanced account of what I increasingly find to be an inconceivable train of events which seems to have become a mere "job" to the perpetrators, and resulted in such an unbelievably tragedy for the victims. I cannot find words to express my horror and sadness when I read the personal accounts of those caught at the sharp end of this inhuman event.

It's a great and thorough account of the events leading to Holocaust, as well as the mechanism of the atrocity itself.The style is engaging and concise, merging skilfully the quotations and eye witness statements with the purely academic, historical narrative.Still the most harrowing and lingering feeling one might have after finishing this rather fantastic book is that history often shifts one grain of sand at a time until circumstances change so rapidly that the horror becomes unstoppable. In the current ever shifting reality of nationalistic and xenophobic mood swings this is an account that both forces you to reflect upon the past and carefully discern it in the context of the future.

I have read numerous accounts relating to the Holocaust and none of them answered one important question, why did The German people turn against the Jews and do nothing? This book not only goes some of the way to answering this troubling question but also highlights the anti semitism that was rife throughout Europe at the time. It also details the willingness of the other European countries to rid themselves of the Jews and their failure to help them before the war started.

The quality and fascination of Laurence Rees writing style is remarkable. As a book that manages to shed some new angles on The Holocaust and the history of Germany from the 1920's through to the end of World War II, this is a book that studies in fine detail the small and larger events that eventually lead to the worst atrocities for Germany and the various countries involved. This is a book that, much like 'Their Darkest Hour' or even 'Auschwitz' scans through events on a personal level whereby Mr. Rees uses quotes from various people who witnessed the events and brings together a book of such immense importance that it becomes a reference for most facts of The Holocaust.

Everyone should read a history of the holocaust. It's a gut-wrenching reminder of humanity's potential to be evil. Too many Germans were brainwashed into thinking not only that they belonged to a superior race, but also that some of those who didn't, or were in some way regarded as 'imperfect', were worse than sub-human, and deserved to be stripped of their rights, their property, their dignity, and ultimately of their lives. It's beyond me how little resistance there was against the organised, and sadistic, extermination of almost an entire people.