Understanding The Holocaust

Bol Partner

What was the Holocaust? Were ordinary Germans morally culpable for murdering millions of innocent victims? This volume seeks to explore these and other ethical, moral, cultural and religious questions within a historical context. What is the Holocaust? Were Hitlet and his executioners sadistic psychopaths? Were ordinary Germans morally culpable for murdering millions of innocent victims? This volume seeks to explore these and other ethical, cultural and religious questions within a historical context. Beginning with the origin and growth of anti-Semitism, this historical survey continues with a consideration of the legacy of the Holocaust in the modern world. Designed as a book for students in colleges and universities, as well as for the general reader, Understanding the Holocaust details the key themes and events of the Holocaust and discusses their implications. Unlike other books on the subject it contains both a history of the Holocaust and extensive reflections on the social, religious and moral issues raised by the emergence of the Third Reich and its impact on subsequent history. The book also contains maps and illustrations related to the growth and development of Nazism and a lengthy biography. Rabbi Professor Dan Cihn-Sherbok received a doctorate in philosophy from Cambridge University and an honorary doctorate in divinity from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.He is Professor of Judaism at the University of Wales at Lampeter. His previous books include The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism (1992) and God and the Holocaust (1996).

Bol

In Understanding the Holocaust, Professor David Engel of New York University examines the encounter between Germany's Third Reich and the Jews of the twenty European countries that fell under Nazi domination between 1933 and 1945. The results of this encounter stretch human comprehension to the limit and raise frightening questions about the human condition. When it was over, two-thirds of Europe's Jews, some 5.8 million people, had died-and their deaths had occurred amid the most gruesome of circumstances. Engel explores the reasons behind the Holocaust and attempts to enter into the minds of the participants. From the origins of the idea behind the killing campaign to the notions of modernity that many blame for creating the possibility for such a happening, Engel offers an illuminating analysis of the twentieth century's great tragedy.