The Holocaust: Roots, History, and Aftermath

The Holocaust: Roots, History, and Aftermath takes a fresh, probing look at one of the greatest human tragedies in modern history. Author David M. Crowe begins with a detailed overview of the history of the Jews, their two-millennia-old struggle with a larger Christian world, and the historical anti-Semitism that created the environment that helped pave the way for the Holocaust. But it would take more than traditional prejudices to bring Europe to the edge of the Shoah . It would take someone like Adolf Hitler, who blended his own hatred of the Jews with contemporary ideas about eugenics, Aryan racial superiority, and German nationalistic frustration with the post-1918 Weimar democratic experiment, to bring to life the Nazi racial policies that led to the Final Solution, the mass murder of all of the Jews in Europe. Crowe analyses the complex origins and evolution of these policies not only toward the Jews, the Nazis' principal victims, but also toward the Roma, the handicapped, and other groups deemed racial or biological threats to Hitler's goal of creating an Aryan-pure Europe. He discusses the spread of these policies in Germany as well as throughout Europe and concludes with a detailed discussion of liberation, Displaced Persons and the founding of Israel, the major war crimes investigations and trials, and continuing international efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.

Table of Contents:
Preface -- Introduction -- Jewish History -- Jews, the Enlightenment, Emancipation, and the Rise of Racial Anti-Semitism Through the Early Twentieth Century -- The World of Adolf Hitler, 1889–1933 -- The Nazis in Power, 1933–1939 -- Nazi Germany at War, 1939–1941 -- The Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Path to the “Final Solution” -- The “Final Solution,” 1941–1944 -- The Final Solution in Western Europe and the Nazi-Allied States -- The Holocaust and the Role of Europe’s Neutrals -- Liberation, DPs, and the Search for Justice -- Estimates of Jewish Deaths During the Holocaust -- Estimates of Roma Deaths During the Holocaust -- Yad Vashem: Righteous Among the Nations -- SS Ranks (Based on US Army Equivalents) -- German Army Ranks (Based on US Army Equivalents)

About the Author :
David M. Crowe is President Emeritus of the Association for the Study of Nationalities at Columbia University and a member of the Education Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. He is currently a Fellow at the centre for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North at Carolina at Chapel Hill. His award-winning books include A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia and The Baltic States and the Great Powers: Foreign Relations, 1938-1940. He teaches at Elon University and its school of law.

Review :
"A work of exceptional breadth, clarity and rich detail that will engage beginning students and will be an invaluable resource for advanced students seeking a synthesis of the complex history of the Holocaust. This outstanding text is shaped equally by brilliant pedagogical organization and meticulous scholarship." -Marilyn J. Harran, Professor of Religious Studies and History; Director, Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, Chapman University "Professor Crowe has produced a compelling and up-to-date history of the Holocaust, one that is clearly written and comprehensive. He begins by examining the origins of the 'longest hatred' of the Jews, proceeds to carry the reader through the subsequent horrors of the persecution, and ends with the war crimes trials of the perpetrators. Students will be in his debt." -Karl A. Schleunes, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; author of The Twisted Road to Auschwitz and Legislating the Holocaust