The Columbia guide to the Holocaust

486 Pages·2000·2.19 MB·English

by  Donald L. Niewyk

THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO
The Holocaust
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THE COLUMBIA GUIDE TO
The Holocaust
Donald Niewyk and Francis Nicosia
columbia university press
new york
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2000Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Niewyk, Donald L., 1940–
The Columbia guide to the Holocaust / Donald Niewyk and Francis Nicosia.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN0-231-11200-9
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Causes. 3.
Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Psychological aspects. 4. World War,
1939–1945—Atrocities. 5. Germany—History—1933–1945. 6. Holocaust, Jewish
(1939–1945)—Sources. I. Nicosia, Francis R., 1944– II. Title.
D804.3.N54 2000
940.53(cid:1)18—dc21 00-024979
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable
acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c10987654321
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1
PART I. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Historical Overview 3
Excluding the “Racially Inferior,” 1933–1939 3
War and the Beginning of Genocide, 1939–1941 9
The Final Solution, 1941–1944 14
The End of the Holocaust, 1944–1945 36
Aftermath and Legacies 37
43
PART II. PROBLEMS AND INTERPRETATIONS
Defining the Holocaust 45
The Gypsies 47
The Mentally and Physically Handicapped 48
Soviet Prisoners of War 48
Polish and Soviet Civilians 49
Political Prisoners, Religious Dissenters, and Homosexuals 50
Conclusion 51
Roots of the Holocaust 53
Trends in Modern European History 53
The History of the Victims 57
The History of Prejudice 63
vi contents
How the “Final Solution” Came About 71
Intentionalists 72
Functionalists 74
Synthesizers 77
The Perpetrators and Their Motivations 83
Perpetrators 83
Motivations 88
The Victims’ Reactions to Persecution 97
Accommodation 97
Armed Resistance 99
Evasion 101
Surviving the Camps 102
The Survivors’ Views 103
The Behavior of Bystanders 109
Germany 109
Eastern Europe 112
Western Europe 116
The Question of Rescue 119
The Allied Powers 120
The Neutrals 125
The Lasting Effect of the Holocaust 129
Participants 129
Legal and Religious Institutions 132
Scholars and Students 134
139
PART III. CHRONOLOGY
Chronology 141
171
PART IV. ENCYCLOPEDIA
Encyclopedia 173
People 173
Places 194
contents vii
Terms 214
Organizations 249
267
PART V. RESOURCES
Resources 269
Printed Reference Works 270
Printed Sources (Primary and Secondary) 273
Filmography 373
Electronic Resources 389
Resource Organizations, Museums, and Memorials 400
Appendix 1. Tables 419
Appendix 2. Maps 425
Index 437
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The preparation of this volume required the generous and enthusiastic assis-
tance of others, and we wish to acknowledge their support and express our grat-
itude.
Henry Friedlander of Brooklyn College and George Kren of Kansas State
University, the consultant scholars for this project, provided the necessary con-
structive criticism of the initial draft. Their expertise in the history of the Holo-
caust, along with the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of their review of our
work, were invaluable throughout the process of writing this book. Much of
the credit for any success that this volume may have belongs to them.
We also wish to thank Peter Black, Bret Werb, and Severin Hochberg of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., for their
patience, and their prompt and friendly responses to telephone, e-mail, and
fax inquiries on a variety of subjects. We gratefully acknowledge a grant from
the William P. Clements Jr. Department of History, Dedman College, South-
ern Methodist University, that facilitated completion of the manuscript.
Thanks too are due the staffs of the Bailey-Howe Library of the University of
Vermont, the Durick Library of Saint Michael’s College, and the Fondren and
Bridwell Libraries of Southern Methodist University.
Finally, we are especially grateful to Kelly McDonald of Saint Michael’s
College. Her intelligence and her special computer skills enabled us to use the
Internet effectively, to collaborate on a regular basis despite the distance be-
tween Texas and Vermont, and to bring the different parts of the volume to-
gether in one complete and, we hope, coherent manuscript.