PDF Rethinking the Holocaust Yehuda Bauer 9780300093001 Books
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Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s premier historians of the Holocaust, here presents an insightful overview and reconsideration of its history and meaning. Drawing on research he and other historians have done in recent years, he offers fresh opinions on such basic issues as how to define and explain the Holocaust; whether it can be compared with other genocides; how Jews reacted to the murder campaign against them; and what the relationship is between the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel.
The Holocaust says something terribly important about humanity, says Bauer. He analyzes explanations of the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman, Jeffrey Herf, Goetz Aly, Daniel Goldhagen, John Weiss, and Saul Friedländer and then offers his own interpretation of how the Holocaust could occur. Providing fascinating narratives as examples, he deals with reactions of Jewish men and women during the Holocaust and tells of several attempts at rescue operations. He also explores Jewish theology of the Holocaust, arguing that our view of the Holocaust should not be clouded by mysticism it was an action by humans against other humans and is therefore an explicable event that we can prevent from recurring.
The Holocaust says something terribly important about humanity, says Bauer. He analyzes explanations of the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman, Jeffrey Herf, Goetz Aly, Daniel Goldhagen, John Weiss, and Saul Friedländer and then offers his own interpretation of how the Holocaust could occur. Providing fascinating narratives as examples, he deals with reactions of Jewish men and women during the Holocaust and tells of several attempts at rescue operations. He also explores Jewish theology of the Holocaust, arguing that our view of the Holocaust should not be clouded by mysticism it was an action by humans against other humans and is therefore an explicable event that we can prevent from recurring.
PDF Rethinking the Holocaust Yehuda Bauer 9780300093001 Books
"Rethinking the Holocaust by Yehuda Bauer is an excellent historical review of the various issues that are raised by the Holocaust. Bauer is one of the preeminent holocaust historians and this book will only reenforce his place in historical studies.
The book reviews most of the recent historical issues ranging from the holocausts place in history to a comparison with more recent genocides. The central thesis is that what seperates the holocaust from the more recent genocides is not the necessarily the evil of the act. What has happened in Africa or Bosnia is not less evil or horrible than what the Nazis did. However, the African and Bosnian genocides were more significanly limited in scope. The Nazi plan was to hunt down the Jews where ever they lived and to eliminate them as a race. This desire seperates the holocaust from all other genocides.
The most interesting chapter discuses the theology of the holocaust. The central theological difficulty of the holocaust is how to reconcile an all powerful God with one that is just. The question being how could a just God who had the power to stop the death of millions not stop that murder. One conclusion is that God is all powerful or just, but not both. Bauer does not have any real answers, and there might not be any; however, the discussion is thought provoking and leads to furhter readings. This chapter was worth reading the book."
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Tags : Rethinking the Holocaust [Yehuda Bauer] on . <DIV><DIV>Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s premier historians of the Holocaust, here presents an insightful overview and reconsideration of its history and meaning. Drawing on research he and other historians have done in recent years,Yehuda Bauer,Rethinking the Holocaust,Yale University Press,0300093004,Holocaust,European history,HISTORY / Holocaust,History,History/World,History World,JEWISH HOLOCAUST,Judaism - General,Non-Fiction,RELIGION / Judaism / General,Religion - Judaism,Scholarly/Undergraduate,UNIVERSITY PRESS,World history
Rethinking the Holocaust Yehuda Bauer 9780300093001 Books Reviews :
Rethinking the Holocaust Yehuda Bauer 9780300093001 Books Reviews
- On principle I do not review books by university colleagues, all the more so when dealing with a subject outside my main territory. Therefore, on the book itself, I limit myself to the assessment that this is one of the most comprehensive and insightful treatments of the Holocaust among those I have read on this subject and on Nazi Germany and its Fuehrer.
This book also serves as a good platform for exploring a fateful subject within my concerns threats to the future of the human species, including the use of doomsday devices by fanatics. As well stated in the book “The basic issue of Holocaust history is to tell it in such a way as to advance the prospect, dim though it may seem, to prevent genocides, Holocaust-like events in particular.†(p. 112).
As is clear from declarations by Hitler in his bunker before committing suicide (a subject outside the scope of this book), if he had a doomsday device he would have used it, preferring a world without humans over one ruled by his enemies who defeated Germany which showed itself as too weak for its mission as postulated the the Nazi global utopia. His closest followers, such as Goebbels, who killed his children before committing suicide with his wife in Hitler’s bunker, would surely have helped Hitler doing away with the human species – if they had a doomsday device, which luckily they did not have.
But emerging science and technology is likely to provide easily available doomsday tools, such as deadly air-carried viruses mutated in kitchen laboratories. Therefore, even a small sect of fanatics committed to freeing Gaya from nature-devastating humanity and ready to die in order to do so, is likely in the not very distant future to be able to kill of most if not all of humanity.
They do not need, as the Nazis did, devoted elite of a few hundred and many willing cooperators, as were necessary for the Holocaust. Enough one or two dozen true believers including a few bioengineers – and the continuing existence of humanity is in doubt.
Therefore the three commandments which Bauer advised to add to the ten Biblical ones are inadequate. He suggests “Thou shall not be a perpetrator; Thou shall not be a passive victim; and Thou most certainly shall not be a bystander†(p. 67, expanded version in Speech to the German Bundestag, p. 273). There are essential but not sufficient. To protect humanity against annihilation by fanatics three more Commandments must be added Thou shall strictly control and limit production and diffusion of knowledge and tools enabling mega-killings; Though shall prohibit dissemination of ideologies supporting mass-killings and and all the more so elimination of humanity; and Thou shall treat all who prepare mass-killings and in particular elimination of humanity as “enemies of humanity,†to be globally hunted down and neutralized.
This book provides one of the needed moral and intellectual foundations and empiric bases for such essential measures. Thus it is of even greater importance than intended by the author.
Professor Yehezkel Dror
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Prof Bauer is a living legend in Israel and one of the most knowledgeable, recognized and respected authorities on Holocaust history. I will read anything and everything he writes. If you are a student or teacher of Holocaust studies, this is a "must read".
- This book presents the SHOA - the Holocaust - the genocide of the Jewish people in the Second World War, in a wide perspective of other genocides in the 20th century.
Bauer presents, besides its own ideas, the opinion of some of the most prominent scholars, some of them non Jewish.
He also presents a diversity of subjects and considerations in the research of the SHOA. - Bauer is one of the best. He should get the Nobel instead of cry baby Wiesel
- Rethinking the Holocaust by Yehuda Bauer is an excellent historical review of the various issues that are raised by the Holocaust. Bauer is one of the preeminent holocaust historians and this book will only reenforce his place in historical studies.
The book reviews most of the recent historical issues ranging from the holocausts place in history to a comparison with more recent genocides. The central thesis is that what seperates the holocaust from the more recent genocides is not the necessarily the evil of the act. What has happened in Africa or Bosnia is not less evil or horrible than what the Nazis did. However, the African and Bosnian genocides were more significanly limited in scope. The Nazi plan was to hunt down the Jews where ever they lived and to eliminate them as a race. This desire seperates the holocaust from all other genocides.
The most interesting chapter discuses the theology of the holocaust. The central theological difficulty of the holocaust is how to reconcile an all powerful God with one that is just. The question being how could a just God who had the power to stop the death of millions not stop that murder. One conclusion is that God is all powerful or just, but not both. Bauer does not have any real answers, and there might not be any; however, the discussion is thought provoking and leads to furhter readings. This chapter was worth reading the book.
