{"product_id":"dance-on-the-razors-edge-9781487523541","title":"Dance on the Razors Edge","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eHistorians have mainly seen the ghettos established by the Nazis in German-occupied Eastern Europe as spaces marked by brutality, tyranny, and the systematic murder of the Jewish population. Drawing on examples from the Warsaw, Lodz, and Vilna ghettos, \u003cem\u003eDance on the Razor’s Edge\u003c\/em\u003e explores how, in fact, highly improvised legal spheres emerged in these coerced and heterogeneous ghetto communities.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLooking at sources from multiple archives and countries, Svenja Bethke investigates how the Jewish Councils, set up on German orders and composed of ghetto inhabitants, formulated new definitions of criminal offenses and established legal institutions on their own initiative, as a desperate attempt to ensure the survival of the ghetto communities. Bethke explores how people under these circumstances tried to make sense of everyday lives that had been turned upside down, bringing with them pre-war notions of justice and morality, and she considers the extent to which this\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The author has written a highly competent, very readable, and […] fair-minded account of a disputed issue in the historiography of the Holocaust, one that makes a […] useful contribution to the literature. Both the subject itself and the author’s treatment of it seem to me deserving of scholarly and public attention.\" -- Michael A. Livingston, Rutgers Law School * \u003cem\u003eCriminal Law and Criminal Justice Books\u003c\/em\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e“To expert readers, this book provides an important contribution to the examination of ghetto life by adding a well-researched study on legal institutions in the ghettos…To non-expert readers, this book will be eye-opening as it plunges them into the messy, uncomfortable ‘choiceless choices’ that made up everyday life in the ghettos.” -- Amy Simon, Michigan State University * \u003cem\u003eCentral European History\u003c\/em\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e“[Bethke’s] careful examination presents the nitty-gritty everyday of the last years and months of hundreds of thousands of people in horrible conditions. Bethke portrays them without false sentimentality as acting and thinking people who adapted, hoped, and tried to survive. Dance on the Razor’s Edge is a bold and important study on how negotiating and breaching rules shows Holocaust victims not as immoral but rather as human.” -- Anna Hájková, University of Warwick * \u003cem\u003eAmerican Historical Review\u003c\/em\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments  Note on Names and Places  Abbreviations    Introduction    1. Nazi Jewish Policy in Eastern Europe and the Perspective of the Jewish Councils  2. Jewish Council Proclamations: Definitions of Criminal Activity  3. The Jewish Police as an Executive Organ  4. The Ghetto Courts  5. The Ghetto Penal System  6. Ordinary Ghetto Residents and Their Relationship with Internal and External Authorities    Conclusion: Criminality and Law between the Poles of External Power and Internal Autonomy    Notes  Bibliography  Index\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Toronto Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48739690643799,"sku":"9781487523541","price":18.89,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781487523541.jpg?v=1720052913","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/dance-on-the-razors-edge-9781487523541","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}