★ 01/01/2021
Genocide scholar and history professor Bartrop, and lawyer and Holocaust consultant Grimm follow their collaboration, Perpetrating the Holocaust, with a wrenching consideration of children during the Holocaust—sufferers, survivors, perpetrators, and protectors (women, men, adolescents). A preface and introduction establish the context and the taxonomy of "vulnerability," "morality," and "rescue." Further reading follows each entry; 10 wide-ranging primary documents (personal and political, each with brief introductions and commentary) are appended. Almost 75 entries focus on individuals, several others on institutions or places, and the rest on such specifics as Hitler Youth, circumcision, border crossing, smuggling, liberation, medical experimentation, diaries, and more. The clear, balanced entries reflect the widely differing backgrounds of those who tried to help Jews, and the tragedy of children lost to starvation, cold, overwork, disease, experimentation, or extermination. Among the rescuers are an Indian maharaja and a woman, recognized only posthumously, who saved more than 15,000 children in Yugoslavia; among the victims, Afro-German children; among the murderers, a doctor who evaded responsibility for 20 years and died unrepentant after only 14 months in prison. VERDICT Often chilling, sometimes inspiring, inexpressibly moving, this volume, while not comprehensive, provides an essential record for all readers interested in history, morality, politics, and human nature.—Patricia D. Lothrop, formerly of St. George's Sch., Newport, RI
