The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (review)

Book Reviews 149 The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives ofInterpretation, edited by Donald 1. Niewyk. lexington, MA: D. C. Heath & Co., 1992. 267 pp. $14.00 (p). Having used this book in my own lecture course on the Holocaust, I have found Niewyk's anthology very helpful in orienting students to the vast literature and complex of issues surrounding the "mass murder of Europe's Jews." Niewyk seeks to instruct, and so this rather slim volume contains a manageable selection of essays which present a variety of contrasting views from established scholars on many of the major issues in Holocaust studies. The volume is very well organized and lends itself to the learning environment. After a brief introductory overview of the Nazi slaughter of the European Jews, Niewyk divides the text into five sections with each section containing four essays covering a selected topic. In order to orient the reader to the major ideas and the contrasting views, Niewyk introduces each section with a concise precis of each of the essays in that section. Such a format enables the student/reader to easily evaluate the arguments of the different positions. Part I examines the origins and roles of Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy in setting the policies and mechanics of murder in motion. The contrasting views of historians like Gerald Fleming and Hans Mommsen polarize around whether there was some kind of "intentionalist" Hitlerian master plan or if the anti-Jewish policies were, instead, a series of decentralized, "functionally" related anti-Jewish measures which just happened to culminate in genocide. Part II presents conflicting views on the behavior of the Jews during the Holocaust itself, focusing closely on memoirs and evaluations of survivors' accounts of concentration camp experiences. Part III examines the "Problem of Jewish Resistance," contrasting the views of scholars like Raul Hilberg and Hannah Arendt with those ofYehuda Bauer. At issue is the significance and extent of the resistance of the Jews themselves to the actions of their Nazi tormentors. Part IV opens up the discussion of the "attitudes and actions of bystanders," i.e" of Gentiles, during the Holocaust especially of the Poles but also of the Germans and West Europeans. Part V examines whether or not more Jews could have been saved through earlier and more committed negotiations, military actions, or diplomatic attention. Opening with a selection from David S. Wyman's "scathing rebuke" of America's leaders in the way they abandoned the Jews (from 1be Abandonment of the Jews: America and the 150 SHOFAR Summer 1993 Vol. 11, No.4 Holocaust, 1941-1945) indicates the no-holds-barred approach which Niewyk facilitates through his choices and the way he introduces and arranges the material. In short, I highly recommend this book based on its balanced objective treatment of the issues, its organization into manageable and easily assimilable units, and the way that it captures, in such a brief space, both the depth and breadth of this vitally important event. Julius J. Simon Department of Religion Temple University Why Genocide? The Armenian andJewish Experiences in Perspective, by Florence Mazian. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990. 291 pp. $29.95. Books on the Armenian Genocide of 1915-23 are rare, books comparing the Armenian Genocide to the Holocaust are rarer still; thus Mazian's comparative study is a welcome addition. The author, a professor of Sociology at the University ofMichigan-Dearborn, adapts Neil Smelser's theory of collective behavior to her two cases. Why Genocide? identifies six factors that lead to genOcide. These are: 1) "the creation of outsiders," 2) "internal strife," 3) "powerful leadership with territorial ambitions forming a monolithic and exclusionary party," 4) "destructive use of communication ," 5) "organization ofdestruction," and 6) "failure ofmultidimensional levels of social control." The work is divided into thirteen chapters. The first six, organized according to the six factors listed above, deal with the Armenian half of her comparison. The last six chapters are devoted to the Holocaust, Chapter thirteen forms the book's conclusion. An underlying assumption of Smelser's work on collective behavior and of this study suggests that events like genocide follow a sequence of events that make the outcome cumulatively more likely (value added approach). Indeed, this...