Gray Zones: Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and its Aftermath(8 War and Genocide)

Few essays about the Holocaust are better known or more important than Primo Levi’s reflections on what he called “the gray zone,” a reality in which moral ambiguity and compromise were pronounced. In this volume accomplished Holocaust scholars, among them Raul Hilberg, Gerhard L. Weinberg, Christopher Browning, Peter Hayes, and Lynn Rapaport, explore the terrain that Levi identified. Together they bring a necessary interdisciplinary focus to bear on timely and often controversial topics in cutting-edge Holocaust studies that range from historical analysis to popular culture. While each essay utilizes a particular methodology and argues for its own thesis, the volume as a whole advances the claim that the more we learn about the Holocaust, the more complex that event turns out to be. Only if ambiguities and compromises in the Holocaust and its aftermath are identified, explored, and at times allowed to remain--lest resolution deceive us--will our awareness of the Holocaust and its implications be as full as possible.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Abbreviations Prologue: The Gray Zones of the Holocaust Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth Part I: Ambiguity and Compromise in Writing and Depicting Holocaust History Introduction Chapter 1. The Ambiguities of Evil and Justice: Degussa, Robert Pross, and the Jewish Slave Laborers at Gleiwitz Peter Hayes Chapter 2. “Alleviation” and “Compliance”: The Survival Strategies of the Jewish Leadership in the Wierzbnik Ghetto and the Starachowice Factory Slave Labor Camps Christopher R. Browning Chapter 3. Between Sanity and Insanity: Spheres of Everyday Life in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando Gideon Greif Chapter 4. Sonderkommando: Testimony from Evidence Michael Berenbaum Chapter 5. A Commentary on “Gray Zones” in Raul Hilberg’s Work Gerhard L. Weinberg Chapter 6. Incompleteness in Holocaust Historiography Raul Hilberg Part II: Identity, Gender, and Sexuality During and After the Third Reich Introduction Chapter 7. Choiceless Choices: Surviving on False Papers on the “Aryan” Side Robert Melson Chapter 8. “Who Am I?” The Struggle for Religious Identity of Jewish Children Hidden by Christians During the Shoah Eva Fleischner Chapter 9. Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers Bryan Mark Rigg Chapter 10. A Gray Zone Among the Field Gray Men: Confusion in the Discrimination Against Homosexuals in the Wehrmacht Geoffrey J. Giles Chapter 11. Pleasure and Evil: Christianity and the Sexualization of Holocaust Memory Dagmar Herzog Chapter 12. The Gender of Good and Evil: Women and Holocaust Memory Sara R. Horowitz Part III: Gray Spaces: Geographical and Imaginative Landscapes Introduction Chapter 13. Hitler’s “Garden of Eden” in Ukraine: Nazi Colonialism, Volksdeutsche, and the Holocaust, 1941–1944 Wendy Lower Chapter 14. Life and Death in the “Gray Zone” of Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-Occupied Europe: The Unknown, the Ambiguous, and the Disappeared Martin Dean Chapter 15. “Almost-Camps” in Paris: The Difficult Description of Three Annexes of Drancy—Austerlitz, Lévitan, and Bassano, July 1943 to August 1944 Jean-Marc Dreyfus Chapter 16. Alternate Holocausts and the Mistrust of Memory Gavriel D. Rosenfeld Chapter 17. Laughter and Heartache: The Functions of Humor in Holocaust Tragedy Lynn Rapaport Chapter 18. The Holocaust in Popular Culture: Master-Narrative and Counter-Narratives in the Gray Zone Ronald Smelser Chapter 19. The Grey Zone: The Cinema of Choiceless Choices Lawrence Baron Part IV: Justice, Religion, and Ethics During and After the Holocaust Introduction Chapter 20. Gray into Black: The Case of Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski Richard L. Rubenstein Chapter 21. Catalyzing Fascism: Academic Science in National Socialist Germany and Afterward Jeffrey Lewis Chapter 22. Postwar Justice and the Treatment of Nazi Assets Jonathan Petropoulos Chapter 23. The Gray Zones of Holocaust Restitution: American Justice and Holocaust Morality Michael J. Bazyler Chapter 24. The Creation of Ethical “Gray Zones” in the German Protestant Church: Reflections on the Historical Quest for Ethical Clarity Victoria J. Barnett Chapter 25. Gray-Zoned Ethics: Morality’s Double Binds During and After the Holocaust John K. Roth Epilogue: An Intense Wish to Understand Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth Select Bibliography About the Editors and Contributors Index

About the Author :
Jonathan Petropoulos is the John V. Croul Professor of European History and Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, at Claremont McKenna College.

Review :
"...a useful addition to Holocaust historiography and literature. It is accessible for students and teachers as well as the general reader. It provides a taste of what the world of Holocaust scholarship is actively engaged in--the constant exploration and understanding of the history of the murder of the Jews of Europe and the ongoing effect of these events on the world today. Hopefully, this book will stimulate others to read further and deeper."   · H-German