Description
Book Synopsis A multifaceted look at historian Raul Hilberg, tracing the evolution of Holocaust research from a marginal subdiscipline into a vital intellectual project.
“I would recommend this book to both Holocaust historians and general readers alike. The breadth and depth of Hilberg’s research and his particular insights have not yet been surpassed by any other Holocaust scholar.”—Jewish Libraries News & Reviews
Though best known as the author of the landmark 1961 work The Destruction of the European Jews, the historian Raul Hilberg produced a variety of archival research, personal essays, and other works over a career that spanned half a century. The Anatomy of the Holocaust collects some of Hilberg’s most essential and groundbreaking writings―many of them published in obscure journals or otherwise inaccessible to nonspecialists―in a single volume. Supplemented with commentary and notes from Hilberg’s longtime German editor and his biographer.
From the Introduction:
This selection by the editors from the multitude of his published texts focuses on Hilberg’s intellectual interests as a Holocaust researcher. Among other topics, they deal with the bureaucracy of the Holocaust, the number of victims, the role of the Judenräte(Jewish councils), and the function of the railway and the police in the extermination process. The scholarly impulses extending from Hilberg’s work remain remarkable and virulent almost a decade after his death.2 They deserve to be readily accessible in one place to historians and the interested public in the new compilation offered here. Many of the debates influenced by Hilberg are not yet resolved. The texts presented can be quite revealing in light of these controversies.
Trade Review “This book is written in a concise and factual narrative style, with an absence of any judgement or emotion…I would recommend this book to both Holocaust historians and general readers alike. The breadth and depth of Hilberg’s research and his particular insights have not yet been surpassed by any other Holocaust scholar.” • Jewish Libraries News & Reviews
“With this compilation of essays and recollections, we […] once again come to know Hilberg as an immensely productive, curious and innovative historian.” • Süddeutsche Zeitung
“A volume of great humanity.” • Die Tageszeitung
“[Hilberg was] undoubtedly the most important pioneer in the field of perpetrator research, all of whose topics and controversies he anticipated in their essence.” • H-Soz-Kult
Table of Contents Introduction
Walter H. Pehle and René Schlott
Chapter 1. The Anatomy of the Holocaust
Chapter 2. German Motivations for the Destruction of the Jews
Chapter 3. The Bureaucracy of Annihilation
Chapter 4. The Significance of the Holocaust
Chapter 5. Incompleteness in Holocaust Historiography
Chapter 6. Bitburg as Symbol
Chapter 7. The Ghetto as a Form of Government
Chapter 8. The Judenrat: Conscious or Unconscious “Tool”
Chapter 9. I Was Not There
Chapter 10. The Holocaust Mission: July 29 to August 12, 1979
Chapter 11. In Search of the Special Trains
Chapter 12. Working on the Holocaust
Chapter 13. The Development of Holocaust Research: A Personal Overview
Index
