Table Of Content“Peter Hayes has assembled an outstanding collection of texts addressing what is undoubtedly the most important question
arising from the Holocaust: How was it possible? This volume will prove invaluable to academic specialists, students, and non-
expert readers who insist on the importance of approaching the subject with empirical and intellectual rigor.”
—Alan E. Steinweis, Leonard and Carolyn Miller Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont
and author of Kristallnacht 1938
“This brilliant compilation includes must-read primary sources, classic works of scholarship, and cutting-edge interpretations,
assembled and introduced by a master historian and path-breaking Holocaust educator. An invaluable resource for students and
teachers alike.”
—Doris L. Bergen, author of War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust
How Was It Possible?
How Was It Possible?
A Holocaust Reader
Edited by Peter Hayes
Foreword by Harvey Schulweis
University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln and London
© 2015 by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.
Acknowledgments for the use of copyrighted material appear in Source Acknowledgments, which constitute an extension of the
copyright page. All rights reserved.
Cover image © iStockphoto.com/Qweek
Author photo courtesy of the author
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
How was it possible?: a Holocaust reader / edited by Peter Hayes; foreword by Harvey Schulweis.
pages cm
Includes bibliographic references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8032-7469-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8032-7489-1 (epub)
ISBN 978-0-8032-7490-7 (mobi)
ISBN 978-0-8032-7491-4 (pdf)
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945) 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–45)—Causes. 3. Antisemitism—Germany—History—20th
century. 4. Jews—Germany—History—twentieth century. 5. Jews—Persecutions—Germany. 6. Germany—History—1933–
45. 7. Germany—Ethnic relations. I. Hayes, Peter, September 7, 1946–, editor.
D804.3.H699 2015 940.53'18—dc23
2014039233
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their
content.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Harvey Schulweis
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Editorial Note
Chapter 1. The Context
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Antisemitism
Robert S. Wistrich, from Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred
Racism
Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, from The Racial State
Contradictions in Central Europe
Amos Elon, from The Pity of It All
Germany’s Turmoil, 1918–1933
Klaus P. Fischer, from Nazi Germany: A New History
The Interwar Jewish Heartland
Ezra Mendelsohn, from The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars
Chapter 2. Nazism in Power
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Elite Cooperation
Eckart Conze et al., from Das Amt und die Vergangenheit [The Office and the Past]
Street-Level Coercion
Sebastian Haffner, from Defying Hitler
The Claims of Community
Thomas Kühne, from Belonging and Genocide
Aryanization
Avraham Barkai, from From Boycott to Annihilation
Talk of “Annihilation”
Ernst von Weizsäcker’s Remarks to a Swiss Diplomat, November 15, 1938, from
Documents Diplomatiques Suisses
“Jews, What Now?” from Das Schwarze Korps, November 24, 1938
Hitler’s Reichstag Speech, January 30, 1939, from Nazism 1939–1945
Chapter 3. Impediments to Escape
Introduction
Peter Hayes
The United States and Refugees, 1933–1940
Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, from American Refugee Policy and European Jewry,
1933–1945
France: From Hospitality to Hostility
Eugen Weber, from The Hollow Years
The Unreceptive British Empire
Louise London, from Whitehall and the Jews, 1933–1948
Switzerland
Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland—Second World War, from Switzerland,
National Socialism, and the Second World War
Palestine
Rebecca Boehling and Uta Larkey, from Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust
Going and Staying
Marion Kaplan, from Between Dignity and Despair
Chapter 4. The New Order in Europe
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Culling the German Volk
Robert N. Proctor, from Racial Hygiene
Rearranging Populations
Götz Aly and Suzanne Heim, from Architects of Annihilation
Racial War in the East
Timothy Snyder, from Bloodlands
Plunder, Individual and Governmental
Götz Aly, from Hitler’s Beneficiaries
Forced Labor
Ulrich Herbert, from Hitler’s Foreign Workers
Chapter 5. Jews in the Nazi Grip
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Indirect Rule
Isaiah Trunk, from Judenrat
Isolation and Impoverishment
Chaim Kaplan, from Scroll of Agony
Choiceless Choices
Gordon J. Horwitz, from Ghettostadt: Łódź and the Making of a Nazi City
Leaving a Record
Samuel D. Kassow, from Who Will Write Our History?
Nothing to Lose
Yisrael Gutman, from The Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943
Women Slave Laborers
Felicja Karay, from Women in the Holocaust
Robbery in the Netherlands
Martin Dean, from Robbing the Jews
Chapter 6. The German Killers and Their Methods
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Deciding to Kill
Mark Roseman, from The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution
Bringing Death to Jews
Richard Rhodes, from Masters of Death
Bringing Jews to Death
Raul Hilberg, from The Destruction of the European Jews
Political Soldiers
Edward B. Westermann, from Hitler’s Police Battalions
The Fates of Gypsies
Yehuda Bauer, from Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp
Camp Labor
Primo Levi, from If This Is a Man (Survival in Auschwitz)
The Final Frenzy
Daniel Blatman, from The Death Marches
Chapter 7. Collaboration and Its Limits
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Poland: The Blue Police
Jan Grabowski, from Hunt for the Jews
Romania: Annihilation Aborted
Jean Ancel, from The History of the Holocaust in Romania
Vichy France: “Our” Jews and the Rest
Saul Friedländer, from The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–
1945
The Italian Paradox
Susan Zuccotti, from The Italians and the Holocaust
The Hungarian Paroxysm
Randolph L. Braham, from Studies on the Holocaust
Papal Priorities
Michael Phayer, from The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965
Self-Serving Switzerland
Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland—Second World War, from Switzerland,
National Socialism, and the Second World War
Chapter 8. Rescuing Jews—Means and Obstacles
Introduction
Peter Hayes
The Kovno Connection
Jonathan Goldstein, from Lessons and Legacies VI
The Good German of Vilna
Michael Good, from The Search for Major Plagge
Collective Action in Vivarais-Lignon
Patrick Henry, from We Only Know Men
The Hidden Jews of Warsaw
Gunnar S. Paulsson, from Secret City
Saving Jewish Children in Belgium
Bob Moore, from Survivors
American Inhibitions
Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, from American Refugee Policy and European Jewry,
1933–1945
Sweden Expands Asylum
Paul A. Levine, from From Indifference to Activism
Chapter 9. Aftermath
Introduction
Peter Hayes
Survivors
Mark Wyman, from DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–51
Zion’s Ambivalence
Tom Segev, from The Seventh Million
America’s Incomprehension
Beth B. Cohen, from Case Closed
The Great Reversal
Tony Judt, from Postwar
The Pathology of Denial
Richard J. Evans, from Lying about Hitler
Restitution and Its Discontents
Michael R. Marrus, from Some Measure of Justice
After Such Knowledge
Eva Hoffman, from After Such Knowledge
List of Abbreviations
Source Acknowledgments
Index
Description:As the Holocaust passes out of living memory, future generations will no longer come face-to-face with Holocaust survivors. But the lessons of that terrible period in history are too important to let slip past. How Was It Possible?, edited and introduced by Peter Hayes, provides teachers and student
