Yad Vashem Studies

Yad Vashem Studies XXVIII

Yad Vashem Studies XXVIII - Table of Contents and Abstracts

Volume 28 of Yad Vashem Studies appears at the beginning of a symbolic milestone in human history—the transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century and from the second to the third millennium of Christianity. Indeed, this volume appears at the end of what many believed would be a momentous decade (an eleven-year period to be exact). Major changes in the world were cause for optimism for many in the democratic countries—from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the political liberation of many peoples at its start, to the visit of Pope John Paul II to Israel and to Yad Vashem at its conclusion.

The Western optimism and euphoria at the beginning of this decade are somewhat reminiscent of the atmosphere at the turn of the last century. Yet just as that optimism of a century ago proved delusory, the optimism that attended the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century was sobered by subsequent events. The rise of xenophobic nationalism in many parts of Europe, the numerous wars against civilians, and even genocide in at least one case, should give us pause. The positivist and optimistic mood and predictions at the dawn of the twentieth century dissolved quickly in what proved to be the bloodiest century in human history. The numbers of people murdered in government-sponsored campaigns, genocides, and the Holocaust in the last century of the second millennium by some reckonings nearly equalled the entire population of the world at the dawn of its first millennium.

The optimism of 100 years ago, the conviction that the human story was one of perennial progress and that, through science and philosophy, humanity could accomplish just about anything, proved to be true in the most terrible way. Advances in science, medicine, and communications have been used to eliminate diseases, improve and extend human life, and bring the world closer together; at the same time wreaking havoc and devastation of heretofore unknown magnitude.

The wars, mass murders, genocides, and the Holocaust were outgrowths of the formative factors of the twentieth century. Some of the articles and review essays in this volume and the coming edition of Yad Vashem Studies call back our attention to some of those roots and their expression, while others examine the results of the human capacity to translate those roots into murderous action. They serve as a reminder that elements of ordinary, daily life can combine with vast, abstract historical processes to produce far-reaching and sometimes massively destructive results.

This volume opens with Jacob Borut’s original contribution to the examination of one of the troubling issues of the Holocaust—the apparent ease with which German and Austrian society spewed out their Jews, who had gone so far along the way toward acculturation and integration. Utilizing a vast treasure of recently-discovered German Jewish documentation, Borut’s examination of antisemitism in tourist facilities in Weimar Germany, which was an important aspect of daily life there, finds widespread latent and active antisemitism among operators of German tourist facilities. The widespread nature of this antisemitism and the basic levels of daily life to which it reached are brought into sharp relief here.

With this article and others, Yad Vashem Studies broadens the usual temporal and geographic scope of our examination of the Holocaust. Where Borut’s study of some antecedents to Nazi society takes us back to the 1920s, Yehiam Weitz’s article on the Israeli government’s decision to enter into reparations’ negotiations with West Germany, concluding the research section of this volume, carries us into the 1950s. Weitz’s analysis of the debate in the government and the Knesset highlights the tensions between the postwar world order and practical needs, on the one hand, and the still-fresh memories of the crime and of the criminals on the other.

Avraham Altman and Irene Eber carry the discussion of the Holocaust all the way to Shanghai. Basing themselves on new documentation from the municipality of Shanghai, Altman and Eber pool their respective expertise on Japan and China to produce an insightful study of the factors behind the receipt of German-Jewish refugees in Shanghai in the years 1938-1940. The authors find that, whereas the Gestapo’s desire to see the Jews emigrate and the Shanghai Municipal Council’s inability to impose passport controls combined to make Shanghai one of the most available emigration destinations for Jewish refugees in the first half of 1939, it was largely viewed by Jewish leaders as a less-than-desirable destination.

Stefan Kley proposes a new interpretation of the factors behind Hitler’s decision to approve the Kristallnacht pogrom—diplomatic brinkmanship. When the pogrom is examined within the context of the issues that engaged Hitler most at that time, argues Kley, it becomes apparent that the assassination of Ernst vom Rath came at a convenient time for him to try to goad Britain into war. And when he sought war, it was a large war against Britain and France that he desired, and not the limited war that most historians attribute to him.

When and how was the operative decision taken to murder the 2.5 million Jews of the Generalgouvernement in Poland in what came to be known as Operation Reinhard? Based on newly available documents and a re-examination of known documents in Germany and Eastern Europe, Bogdan Musial concludes that the initiative for the murder of these Jews came from Odilo Globocnik, the man Himmler appointed to command the operation. The decision was taken in the first half of October 1941, argues Musial, and was closely tied to plans being developed to Germanize the Lublin district of Poland. Musial’s well-researched analysis, like those of Altman and Eber and Kley, offers students of the Holocaust much food for thought.

One-third of the volume is devoted to one of the odd and troubling puzzles of the Holocaust in the last months of the war and the death marches. Who ordered these marches from the camps that were conducted under the most extreme brutality? Why were these death marches and massive transfers of camp prisoners undertaken? Where did each group of marchers go, under what conditions, at what pace, and over what expanses? Four scholars contribute their path-breaking research findings to this discussion: Daniel Blatman, Eleonore Lappin, Joachim Neander, and Zvi Erez. Blatman takes a macro view, attempting to answer the general question of the orders and arrangements and to explain the seeming zigzags in Nazi policy regarding camp prisoners during the last months of the war. Lappin, Neander, and Erez have undertaken micro examinations of specific groups of (mostly) Hungarian Jews who were marched and transported over large tracts of territory during this period. In the cases of Neander (a group of women) and Erez (a group of men), the starting point for the march was forced-labor camps where Jews were meant to engage in productive labor. Lappin’s research reveals the death marches at their most horrific, with numerous groups crisscrossing paths across the length and breadth of Austria. In order to help the reader trace the steps of the Jews on these death marches, we have included specially-prepared maps to accompany the articles (the spelling of the place-names are as the authors requested). We trust that this discussion group will make a significant contribution to our understanding of this aspect of the Holocaust.

Three review essays round out this volume. Leni Yahil looks at one of the most important resource books to be published in recent years—Himmler’s Dienstkalender, his office diary for the critical years 1941-1942. The diary sheds light on decision-making in Nazi Germany during the period that included the invasion of the Soviet Union and the onset of the systematic murder of the Jews of Europe. Rochelle Saidel reviews two recent books relating to women and the Holocaust by Dalia Ofer and Lenore Weitzman, and by Judith Baumel, and also takes a broad look at the entire field of gender studies and the Holocaust. Finally, Eli Lederhendler reviews Efraim Zuroff’s new book on American Orthodox Jewry’s responses to the Holocaust, raising the questions of what is a central representative body and what is a splinter group in a discussion such as this, and what were the nature and scope of the rescue attempts undertaken.

If this introduction began with a reflection on the outgoing century, then, when reflecting on the contents of this volume, we might ask: What is the historical legacy that is being passed on to the twenty-first century? Whereas it certainly does not inspire anything like the positive outlook that many at the turn of the last century shared, perhaps it is also not quite as bleak as the opening paragraphs of this introduction might imply. George Santayana’s now well-known observation that those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it comes to mind. But does the twentieth century, through its somewhat ominous final decade, indicate that we are so condemned? Perhaps the somewhat less well-known comment some 250 years ago by Israel Baal Shem-Tov, the founder of Hasidism, can be instructive: Forgetfulness leads to exile, but in remembrance lies the key to redemption.

The articles in this volume, in reflecting on the worst exile of humanity from human behavior, are not redemptive. They do not provide clear-cut, complete answers to the difficult basic questions raised by the Holocaust, nor do they offer formulas for learning lessons toward future prevention. Rather, they continue to call our attention to the fact that there is much still to be learned, much work still to be done. Perhaps in the recognition of this continuing challenge lies a glimmer of cautious optimism for the future.

David Silberklang