Yehuda Bauer is arguably one of the most profound authors of the Holocaust and Jewish History. He was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia and emigrated to Israel where he completed his High School years and went on to attend Cardiff University where he studied Jewish History under a full scholarship. He returned to Israel and continued his graduate studies at Hebrew University. Bauer received his PhD in 1960 for a thesis in the British Mandate of Palestine, and was the founder of the Journal of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. In total, Bauer published over 25 books about Jewish History and the events surrounding the Holocaust. Bauer, being Jewish himself, was definitely more sympathetic of the Jewish people, but that is not uncommon in literature about the Holocaust. Yehuda Bauer was a very qualified writer based off his experience and education about the Holocaust and Jewish History more broadly.
History of the Holocaust, written by Yehuda Bauer in the early 1980s, is a comprehensive history of the Holocaust and the surrounding details about Nazism, Anti-Semitism, and the Jewish lifestyle before the Holocaust. Mr. Bauer starts of the book with a general overview of “Who are the Jews?” and how their history led to the Jewish Holocaust. The emergence of the Jews is a controversial, confusing, and conflicting set of theories. Bauer then goes on to discuss how the rise of anti-Semitism was devastating for the Jews.
One of the most devastating blows to the Jewish people was the rise of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism was based on Christian anti-Judaism: “The deicide accusation, the supersession myth, the supposed moral turpitude and deserved punishment resulting from the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, as well as economic be...
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...how did the Nazi government decide upon a policy of comprehensive extermination of Europe’s Jewish population?” In Bauer’s depiction of the decision, he believed that since “the United states, the only major Western power which was still neutral, had not protested the treatment of the Jews up to that point,” that there seemed to be “no objection from an international point of view to an intensification of Nazi brutality.” Donald L. Niewyk, author of The Holocaust, believed that the decision to exterminate the Jews came from a last-resort decision. That there was a “plan to deport European Jews to Madagascar” which seemed “to have been operative as late as October 1940,” but “was simply not feasible” as the Island was not under German control. This ran the German Nazis out of feasible options, so the only possible option was to exterminate the race entirely.
The effect the Holocaust had on Wiesenthal played a major role on the person he made himself to be. Born on December 31, 1908, Simon Wiesenthal lived in Buczacz, Germany which is now known as the Lvov Oblast section of the Ukraine. The Nazi-Hunter came from a small Jewish family who suffered horrifically during the Holocaust (The Simon Wiesenthal Center). Wiesenthal spent a great amount of time trying to survive in the harsh conditions while in internment camps and after escaping the last camp he attended. Wiesenthal spent weeks traveling through the wilderness until he was eventually captured by the Allies, still wondering the entire time if his wife was even alive (The Simon Wiesenthal Center). Of the 3000 prisoners in the camp Wiesenthal escaped from, only 1200 survived and Wiesenthal was one of them (Holocaust Research Project). Once Simon was safe, he began working for the War Crimes Section of the United States Army and was later reunited with his wife (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The two were under the impression that their spouse was dead. After their reunification, they had their first child in 1946 (Holocaust Research Project). Wiesenthal opened a Jewish...
Before the nineteenth century anti-Semitism was largely religious, based on the belief that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. It was expressed later in the Middle Ages by persecutions and expulsions, economic restrictions and personal restrictions. After Jewish emancipation during the enlightenment, or later, religious anti-Semitism was slowly replaced in the nineteenth century by racial prejudice, stemming from the idea of Jews as a distinct race. In Germany theories of Aryan racial superiority and charges of Jewish domination in the economy and politics in addition with other anti-Jewish propaganda led to the rise of anti-Semitism. This growth in anti-Semitic belief led to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and eventual extermination of nearly six million Jews in the holocaust of World War II.
The vast literature on Nazism and the Holocaust treats in great depth the first three elements, the focus of this book, is t...
Rosenbaum, Alan S. Is The Holocaust Unique?. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2008. 387. Print.
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
Haugen, David M., and Susan Musser. The Holocaust. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2011. Print. Perspectives on Modern World History.
“99 subhuman Jews in the row, 99 subhuman Jews! Shoot one down, kick it around, 98 subhuman Jews in the row!” ~ Concentration camp worker during the holocaust. How could you begin to describe what’s always said to be such a horrible and tragic event? The Holocaust or Final Solution only seems as bad equal to the amount the person describing it values human life. To answer all of the topics presented to me I will be discussing the following; What is meant by “The Holocaust” or “Final Solution”, Why the Jewish were dehumanized, The choices made during the Holocaust, and My personal view on events that took place during the holocaust.
"History of the Holocaust - An Introduction." Jewish Virtual Library - Homepage. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Web. 8 July 2010. .
During World War II, the Nazi regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, attempted to eliminate all the Jews and other “inferior peoples” of Europe. The Nazis and their collaborators killed millions of people, including six million Jewish people and other minority groups, such as 200,000 gypsies and 200,000 disabled people ("Introduction to the Holocaust”). This terrible period in history is now referred to as the Holocaust ("Background to the Holocaust”). A young girl named Anne Frank wrote one of the most notable Jewish texts from this period. Her optimism about the future should inspire the resolution of the modern religious and racial conflicts which stem from WWII era prejudices.
"Perpetrators." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. University of South Florida, 1 Jan. 1997. Web. 19 May 2014. .
For many years, people time and time again denied the happenings of the Holocaust or partially understood what was happening. Even in today’s world, when one hears the word ‘Holocaust’, they immediately picture the Nazi’s persecution upon millions of innocent Jews, but this is not entirely correct. This is because Jews
The holocaust was the mass murder of about six million Jews during World War II. The hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group is known as antisemitism. Antisemitism was a centuries old phenomenon. Jews in Europe had always been a minority. In some countries , Jews could not own land, attend school, or practice certain professions. The Holocaust, which was between 1933 and 1945, is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism. A German journalist that was named Wilhelm Marr originated the term antisemitism in 1879. Which symbolized the hatred of Jews, and also hatred of a variety of advanced, catholic, and international political trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that were often joined with Jews. The tendency under attack included equal civil rights, required equality, free trade, ownership, account free enterprise, and self control from violence. Between the most casual definition of antisemitism all through history were pogroms. Pogroms were violent riots that were begun against Jews and many times supported by government authorities. Pogroms were often encouraged by blood libels, which were false rumors that Jews used the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes. In the modern era, antisemites added a political quality to their ideas of hatred. In the last third of the nineteenth century, antisemitic political groups were formed in France, Germany and Austria. Advertisements such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion developed or provided support for fake theories of a global Jewish plot. A convincing part of political antisemitism was nationalism, whose supporters often falsely accused Jews as disloyal citizens. The Nazi party, which was established in 19...
Levi, Neil, and Michael Rothberg. The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Print.
Dwork, Deborah, and R. J. Van Pelt. Holocaust: a History. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.