How Did It Happen?

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.

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.

• Prologue Ruta Vanagaite1 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