The Holocaust: Roots, History and Aftermath (review)

Designed by the author for classroom use, this book covers the background of anti-Jewish policies and practices in prior centuries as well as the German setting and Nazi policies during the Holocaust. Furthermore, it sets the events of the 1930s and 1940s into the broader framework of Nazi racial policies, covering such issues as the compulsory sterilization and systematic killing of handicapped so-called Aryan Germans and the killing of Roma (Gypsies) and others considered inferior racially by the Germans. The approach is, in part, chronological and, especially for the war and postwar years, geographical in a way that makes good sense. The text combines a summary of basic information with detailed examples, numerous illustrations, and extensive quotations from documents and testimony. Each chapter is provided with a chronology and bibliographical listings of primary and secondary sources. The authors of important books in the field are frequently mentioned by name in the text, and endnotes include source references.

What makes this book especially useful both as a textbook and as a general introduction to the subject is the author’s broad approach. Instead of trying for novelty in interpretation or the unearthing of hitherto unknown detail, Crowe places the Holocaust in the context of German racial policies, something rarely done so effectively. Similarly, the breadth of coverage, which includes the policies of countries neutral in World War II and the postwar trials of many European countries, is a helpful feature of the book. Students will also benefit from the explication of several topics about which scholars differ in interpretation. The author is balanced in his presentation of Jewish resistance and his description of the extent to which authorities and ordinary citizens in countries occupied by, or allied with, Germany assisted or resisted the murder programs.

Certain errors are important to note. The discussion of the 1919 peace settlement and the German inflation is out of date. The compulsory sterilization law of July 14, 1933, was enacted by the German cabinet, not the parliament. The review of the Holocaust in Norway omits the role of State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker in repulsing the offer of Sweden to accept Norway’s Jews—a factor in the Swedish decision to announce publicly the willingness to accept Denmark’s Jews. The section on Hungary needs rewriting. Prime Minister Paul Teleki did not resign after his suicide, and the distinction between what happened in Budapest and the rest of the country should be clarified. The extension of the Holocaust to the Dodecanese islands is barely mentioned but belongs in the context of Adolf Hitler’s insistence on killing of Jews throughout the world, not only in Europe. The attachment of a murder commando to Erwin Rommel’s headquarters in Egypt also deserves mention in the book. Two important books that Crowe missed are Richard Breitman’s Official Secrets: What the Germans Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (New York, 1998) and Rüdiger Overmans’ Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich, 2000). All of the currency conversion figures need another look. These are all minor matters in a textbook that deserves widespread use.