The Cambridge History of the Holocaust – serie

Ordinary victims' voices from the Holocaust are still far less recognized than those of the perpetrators, Volume III of The Cambridge History of the Holocaust centers upon victims' perspectives, examining their experiences, responses, and fates. Chapters encompass the ordeals of a range of persecuted groups: Jews, Roma and Sinti, and homosexuals, as well as those with physical and mental challenges, Slavs, and Soviet prisoners of war. Covering a wide geographical scope, contributors underscore the differences between victim experiences in eastern and western Europe while highlighting national and regional complexities. Through a breadth of primary sources including diaries, letters, memoirs and interviews, readers gain insight into the diverse reactions and behaviors of victims as well as those who helped or hurt them. This volume offers an overview of Holocaust scholarship through victims' voices, while highlighting areas for further research.

This ambitious pan-European overview explores the most significant causal factors, political developments, and societal forces that contributed to the perpetration of the Holocaust. Drawing on wide-ranging current scholarly expertise, this volume seeks to explain the genocidal scope and European dimensions of the crimes committed by Nazi Germany and its allies, collaborators, and facilitators across the continent during the war. It broadens the range of Holocaust research beyond the German initiators and organizers, however central these remain. Contributions look beyond simple or monocausal explanations in terms of, for example, Hitler's role or ideological antisemitism. Combining in-depth studies of specific locations and developments with overviews of thematic issues and wider questions, the second volume of the Cambridge History of the Holocaust offers concise analyses of the complex developments, varied interests, and interrelated events that were rooted in previous history and continue to influence the present within and beyond Europe. Cumulatively, this book presents a complex, multifaceted approach to understanding the uneven unfolding and escalation of the Holocaust.

The aftermath of the Holocaust has been long and wide-reaching. Any act of mass murder and genocide leaves powerful traces: the trauma of the survivors, the challenge of punishment for the perpetrators and justice for the victims, and questions of how to properly commemorate and memorialize the loss and how to rebuild and restore. This is all the more true for the Holocaust, which has come to serve as a global cultural touchstone for evaluating mass violence. The legacy of the Holocaust has impacted every area of political and cultural life in many different countries since 1945. What is the state of aftermath studies for the Holocaust? How do we periodize the post-Holocaust landscape? Where are there continuities and where are there changes? How, when, and where has the Holocaust been globalized? In what areas did the Holocaust generate a fundamental rethinking of human relations and state institutions? And where did it not? This volume offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of the impact and legacy of the Holocaust around the world and demonstrates its enduring significance, from the postwar period to the present day.