Jews In The Eyes Of The Germans

Among the many narratives about the atrocities committed against Jews in the Holocaust, the story about the Jews who lived in the eye of the storm—the German Jews—has received little attention. Germans against Germans: The Fate of the Jews, 1938–1945, tells this story—how Germans declared war against other Germans, that is, against German Jews. Author Moshe Zimmermann explores questions of what made such a war possible? How could such a radical process of exclusion take place in a highly civilized, modern society? What were the societal mechanisms that paved the way for legal discrimination, isolation, deportation, and eventual extermination of the individuals who were previously part and parcel of German society? Germans against Germans demonstrates how the combination of antisemitism, racism, bureaucracy, cynicism, and imposed collaboration culminated in "the final solution."

With skill, sensitivity, and spirit, Eyes are Watching, Ears are Listening tells the story of Eycke Strickland's unusual childhood in the Third Reich. In beautiful prose, the author relates fascinating memories of a large, loving, and unconventional family in pre-war Germany and in war-time (German-annexed) Poland. Strickland's evocative anecdotes and candid commentary paint a richly-layered portrait of family ties and tensions, on the one hand, and of childhood adventures and anxieties, on the other. Simultaneously, the book contributes to our understanding of life and death under National Socialism. From the viewpoint of a young, but perceptive, daughter in an anti-Nazi family, we learn about relations between Germans and Jews, Germans and Poles, and ordinary Germans and Nazi officials in a Polish town located close to Auschwitz. Above all, we are introduced to a courageous family that resisted a criminal regime and survived total war. Strickland's father, Karl Laabs, rescued many Jews from deportation to Auschwitz. Her mother's civil treatment of Poles led to repeated threats from Nazi stalwarts. Their resilient children helped the family endure a terrible time. This poignant, informative memoir deserves a wide readership. -Donna Harsch, Ph.D., author of German Social Democracy and The Rise of Nazism, and Revenge of the Domestic: Women, the Family, and Communism in the German Democratic Republic.

A provocative and insightful analysis that sheds new light on one of the most puzzling and historically unsettling conundrums Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Countless historians have grappled with these questions, but few have come up with answers as original and insightful as those of maverick German historian Götz Aly. Tracing the prehistory of the Holocaust from the 1800s to the Nazis' assumption of power in 1933, Aly shows that German anti-Semitism was—to a previously overlooked extent—driven in large part by material concerns, not racist ideology or religious animosity. As Germany made its way through the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, the difficulties of the lethargic, economically backward German majority stood in marked contrast to the social and economic success of the agile Jewish minority. This success aroused envy and fear among the Gentile population, creating fertile ground for murderous Nazi politics. Surprisingly, and controversially, Aly shows that the roots of the Holocaust are deeply intertwined with German efforts to create greater social equality. Redistributing wealth from the well-off to the less fortunate was in many respects a laudable goal, particularly at a time when many lived in poverty. But as the notion of material equality took over the public imagination, the skilled, well-educated Jewish population came to be seen as having more than its fair share. Aly's account of this fatal social dynamic opens up a new vantage point on the greatest crime in history and is sure to prompt heated debate for years to come.

Tracing Germany's significance as an essential crossroads and incubator for modern Jewish culture

In this memoir of the first 25 years of his life in Germany, Strauss (emeritus, history, City College of New York) recounts his upbringing, experiences at the last surviving Jewish institution of higher learning in Berlin, in the city's underground, and 1943 escape to Switzerland. Includes photos of his family, friends, and the first postwar meeting of the International Conference of Christians and Jews. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Tells the story of Jewish survivors inside and outside the displaced-persons camps of the American zone as they built families and reconstructed identities while awaiting emigration to Palestine or the United States. Examines how Germans and Jews interacted and competed for Allied favor, benefits, and victim status, and how they sought to restore normality-- in work, in their relationships, and in their everyday encounters.

The Book They Can't Suppress Not for sixty years has a book been so brutally (and, in the end, unsuccessfully) suppressed as An Eye for an Eye. One major newspaper, one major magazine, and three major publishers paid $40,000 for it but were scared off. One printed 6,000 books, then pulped them. Two dozen publishers read An Eye for an Eye and praised it. "Shocking, "Startling," "Astonishing," "Mesmerizing," "Extraordinary," they wrote to Author John Sack. "I was rivited," "I was bowled over," "I love it," they wrote, but all two dozen rejected it. Finally, BasicBooks published An Eye for an Eye. It "sparked a furious controversy," said Newsweek. It became a best-seller in Europe but was so shunned in America that it also became, in the words of New York Magazine, "The Book They Dare Not Review." Since then, both 60 Minutes and The New York Times have corroborated what Sack wrote: that at the end of World War II, thousands of Jews sought revenge for the Holocaust. They set up 1,255 concentration camps for German civilians -- German men, women, children and babies. There they beat, whipped, tortured and murdered the Germans.