Sources of the Holocaust

by Steve Hochstadt

Overview

The Holocaust was the central event of the twentieth century. How can we understand the Nazi drive to murder millions of people, or the determination of concentration camp prisoners to survive? In this new collection of original documents and sources, Steve Hochstadt brings the reader into direct contact with the Holocaust's human participants. The words of Nazi leaders and common soldiers, SS doctors and European collaborators show how and why they became involved in mass murder, while those of the victims help us to imagine their torments.

Sources of the Holocaust moves from the origins of Christian anti-Semitism to today's controversies over restitution to reveal the ideas that made the Holocaust possible, the detailed Nazi plans to destroy human lives, and the ability of those targeted to mount resistance. Hochstadt's authoritative commentaries on each source, based on the latest research, describe the people who produced these documents, and provide a full history of the Holocaust. At the same time, Hochstadt offers fresh ideas on major perpetrators, the significance of resistance, and the meaning of the word 'Holocaust'.

Both shocking and compelling, this volume of authentic accounts of Holocaust experiences offers new insights into one of the most terrible episodes in human history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350328044
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/23/2023
Series:	Documents in History
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	328
Sales rank:	496,824
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.83(d)

About the Author

STEVE HOCHSTADT is Professor of History at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, USA. He teaches modern European history and the Holocaust. His book Mobility and Modernity: Migration in Germany 1820-1989 won the Social Science History Association's Allan Sharlin Award in 2000.
STEVE HOCHSTADT is Professor of History at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, USA. He teaches modern European history and the Holocaust. His book Mobility and Modernity: Migration in Germany 1820-1989 won the Social Science History Association's Allan Sharlin Award in 2000.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Context of Christian Antisemitis
The Creation of Monsters in Germany: Jews and Others
The Nazi Attack on Jews and Other Undesirables in the Third Reich, 1933-1938
The Physical Assault on Jews in Germany, 1938-1939
The Perfection of Genocide as National Policy, 1939-1945
'Arbeit Macht Frei': Work and Death in Concentration Camps and Ghettos
Assembly Lines of Death: Extermination Camps
The Aftermath
The Holocaust in Contemporary Life
Conclusion
List of Sources
Bibliography
Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Sources of the Holocaust is a tremendously rich collection of primary sources that together offer priceless insight into the Nazi extermination of the Jews of Europe. The scores of documents of various types that it contains provide a sense of immediacy and feeling for the horror that was the Shoah in a way that no secondary source could ever give. It is hard to imagine that anyone will want to teach a course on the Holocaust without having students read and discuss this collection.' - David I. Kertzer, Dupee University Professor, Brown University

'Steve Hochstadt's brilliant study probes the causes of the Holocaust through the centuries, and it documents its perpetration with painstaking accuracy. Sources of the Holocaust is a lasting contribution to the history of persecution and genocide.' - Judith Magyar Isaacson, author of Seed of Sarah: Memoirs of a Survivo

r'A valuable volume of sources.' - Louise Willmot, Manchester Metropolitan University

'Hochstadt's new collection of holocaust related sources is a highly valuable addition to the field. Its broad range of materials ensures the inclusion of both key documents and lesser known materials that are both significant and shocking. Its combined chronological and thematic organization will allow scholars to make new historiographical connections, as well as providing teachers and students with a clear, accurate and concrete documentary base from which to teach and learn about the different historical stages and lessons of the Holocaust.' - Anna Reading, London South Bank University

'This is a very useful, wide-ranging set of texts that set the issue in its widest historical context. The commentaries are very helpful.' - Professor Conan Fischer, University of Strathclyde

'A very good, wide ranging collection. The best of its kind.' - Dr Patrick Finney, University of Wales, Aberystwyth'...those who want to understnad the way the war actually worked will learn a great deal' - The Australian Jewish News

'This source book belongs on the shelf next to the great classics of teaching Holocaust.' - Jewish Book World

'Scholars and readers searching for a primer of sources related to the history of anti-Semitism from its earliest origins and the Holocaust will profit greatly from this book.' - German Studies Review

'...it is clear that this volume offers a positive and effective....teaching contribution to approaching the Third Reich's racial policies between 1933 and 1945.' - Matthew Feldman, Archives

Editorial Reviews

Sources of the Holocaust assembles a powerful record of the Holocaust's long incubation and Nazi-led implementation in the 1930s and 1940s. Supporting commentaries on the language which normalized discrimination and manifested murder, the defiant responses of its victim groups, and postwar societal resonances, further embed the Holocaust's centrality in European and global history. Highly recommended.” —Simone Gigliotti, Senior Lecturer, Holocaust Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

“Steve Hochstadt has produced a highly useful collection of Holocaust-related documents. The sources assembled here provide broad chronological, geographical, and thematic coverage of the subject. Each document is accompanied by a brief and insightful commentary. I recommend this volume for any college-level course on the Holocaust.” —Alan E. Steinweis, Raul Hilberg Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies, University of Vermont, USA

From the Publisher