How Did It Happen?: Understanding the Holocaust

In this compelling book, Lithuanian author Ruta Vanagaite holds an extended conversation with noted historian Christoph Dieckmann. His exploration of the causes and consequences of the Holocaust in Lithuania provides the first overview for general readers that considers the perspectives of all the central groups involved—Jews, Lithuanians, and Germans. Drawing on a rich array of sources in all the key languages—Yiddish, Ivrit, Lithuanian, and German—Dieckmann considers not only the Berlin-based orientation of the German perpetrators but also the space where the Shoah took place—Lithuanian society with its Jewish minority under German occupation. He contends that this “space” of mass crimes is always linked with warfare and occupation. The Holocaust was unprecedented, but he makes a powerful case it cannot be isolated from the other mass crimes that took place at the same time in the same space against thousands of Soviet prisoners of war and forced refugees from the Soviet territories. Dieckmann shows that the Holocaust could not have unfolded throughout German-dominated Europe without the conditional cooperation of non-Germans in each occupied country. Existing antisemitism was radicalized from the 1930s onward, turning Jews, under the enormous stress of unrelenting warfare and often instable conditions of occupation, into what were perceived as deadly enemies. The Holocaust, its history and memory, can only be understood through this broader context. The authors’ searching exchanges illuminate the most profound questions we have as we struggle to understand the Holocaust.

Table of Contents:
Prologue Ruta Vanagaite 1 Why This Book? 2 People Had a Choice 3 Germany’s Trauma 4 Lithuania’s Trauma 5 The Jew Is the Devil 6 Small and Radical 7 Plans for Mass Murder 8 “Blitzkrieg”: Local Helpers Needed! 9 Lithuania’s Dream of Independence 10 An Easy Occupation 11 Controversies of the Uprising 12 Enter the SS 13 Jews in Panic 14 Lithuanian Border Strip: The First Shootings 15 Pogroms 16 The First Mass Shooting of Jews in Kaunas 17 The Road to Ponar 18 Vigilante Lithuanian Courts 19 Ghettoization in the Provinces 20 Robbing the Living 21 Lithuanian Fascists Take Over 22 “Kill Them All!” 23 The “Final Solution” in the Provinces 24 The Oral Orders 25 The Lithuanian Road Killers 26 100,000 Trapped City Jews 27 Life in the Ghettos: Hunger, Poetry, Death 28 Choiceless Choices 29 The Accidental Death of European Jews 30 Forgotten Victims: Soviet POWs 31 Forgotten Victims: The Soviet Evacuees 31 Slavery 33 No to the SS Legion 34 To Die as Free Fighters 35 Survival and Terror 36 The End: Vilnius 37 The End: Šiauliai 38 The End: Kaunas 39 The Murdered “Others” 40 Burning the Bodies 41 To Save a Jew 42 The Silence of the Church 43 The Brief Story of Lithuanian Resistance Epilogue Selected Bibliography About the Authors

About the Author :
Christoph Dieckmann is a German historian who hdirects a sound-history study, Sounds of Anti-Jewish Persecution, at the University of Bern. His book Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941–1944 (German Occupation Policy in Lithuania 1941–1944) was awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. Ruta Vanagaiteis a Lithuanian writer and journalist. Her books include Our People: Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust, coauthored with Efraim Zuroff.

Review :
Intended for a nonacademic audience but without oversimplifying, this analysis of the destruction of the Lithuanian Jewish community is presented in Q and A style, with German historian Dieckmann providing straightforward answers to direct questions posed by Lithuanian journalist Vanagaite. The Holocaust occurred primarily outside Germany, and in Lithuania about 90 percent of the Jewish population was murdered. An examination of the path to destruction there facilitates an understanding of the origin and evolution of Nazi Germany’s Final Solution. The mass murder of Lithuanian Jews was a “centrally managed process” (p. 183) carried out over just a few months and thoroughly documented. Thus, a fairly complete picture exists of how and why it happened. Although instigated and coordinated by Germany, its implementation required the willing, and at times enthusiastic, cooperation of a large number of Lithuanian civilians and administrators. In 43 brief chapters and an epilogue, the authors explain the forces behind the Nazis' anti-Jewish policies. Effectively organized and quick-to-read, this volume is ideal for nonspecialists, though instructors will also find individual chapters helpful for addressing students' queries regarding specific aspects of the Holocaust. Recommended. General readers through faculty. Christoph Dieckmann is one of the foremost historians of the Holocaust. His extraordinary study of the German occupation of Lithuania is the most important book written about the Holocaust in the twenty-first century. This dialogue with Ruta Vanagaite opens the door to his vast knowledge and to his measured and persuasive interpretations. What is this book about? It is about the main lesson of the Holocaust: the fact that each one of us has a choice—to be human or not to be. Even in hell we have this choice. Evil always needs executioners—big and small, more small than big. It is so simple to become a small executioner. Often only you would know about the betrayal you have committed, but this is even worse. Other people can forget about it, but you yourself will never be able to forget. The time will go by, you will be alone—on your way, in the night, before dying , and for sure you will remember it. This book is a breakthrough. Authored by Christoph Dieckmann, a great authority on the history of Lithuania during World War Two, and a Lithuanian writer, Ruta Vanagaite, it tells the story of the annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry, in which there was massive participation by ethnic Lithuanians, under overall German command. Based on the vast store of Dr. Dieckmann’s archive-based and multilingual knowledge, the book unfolds in a dialogue that intelligent readers everywhere can easily absorb. Viewing the Lithuanian Jewish tragedy from an overall historical perspective that emphasizes local motivations and co-responsibility for genocide, the authors’ conversation makes academic historical knowledge accessible to the general public. This book, even though it is written in the form of a journalistic dialogue, is a serious work. Christoph Dieckmann, a highly respected European historian, bases his assessments on indisputable sources, avoiding dilettantism or bias. He therefore successfully analyzes forms of extreme ethnic nationalism—the appearance of the Lithuanian Nazism of 1941–1944, remnants of which still exist today. Like Ruta Vanagaite’s and Efraim Zuroff’s Our People, this book will anger Nazi apologists but undoubtedly will deepen our national self-awareness and understanding of history.