Abstract
Scholarship on the Holocaust numbers thousands of volumes, and even more articles, with research located in a plethora of disciplines which all contribute to the wider field of Holocaust Studies. There have been a number of previous ‘handbooks’, which aim to chart a way into the field and record the state of research at a given point in time. Most of these were historiographical in orientation or focused on specific fields of Holocaust representation. The volume under review distinguishes itself by offering a circumspect snapshot of the field of Holocaust Studies that encompasses several academic disciplines. It is intended to offer the scholar as well as the advanced student a view of the development of the field to date and an insight into the current state of research on the Holocaust across the disciplines of the Humanities. This is valuable to readers of the Expository Times who research and teach in related fields of theology and religious studies and can find here an up-to-date guide to current scholarship on the Holocaust to aid the delivery of courses. It is also valuable to those readers of the Expository Times who have a private interest in the field of Holocaust Studies, who can find here a responsible guide to current academic questions and debates.
The Handbook is structured into five parts, three of which tackle topics in historical research, the final two sections occupied with issues of representation and the effects of the Holocaust in a variety of areas of contemporary society. All contributions are written by leading experts in the field whose careers build on the pioneering work of the first generation of scholars in Holocaust Studies such as Saul Friedlander and Raul Hilberg. It is noticeable that the majority of contributors hold positions at universities in the United States, only about a quarter being employed at European, Israeli and Australian institutions. This indicates a particular conception of the field of Holocaust Studies which, while undoubtedly given formative shape by scholars in the United States, has a significant scholarly tradition in Europe, notably in Germany and France. All contributions are written in an accessible, lucid style that enables novices to the field to benefit as much as it is able to inform and consolidate the knowledge of academics and students in related areas of scholarship.
Part I entitled ‘Enablers’ surveys the various contributing factors to the Holocaust such as antisemitism (Richard S. Levy), science (Patricia Heberer), nationalism (Eric Weitz), colonialism (A. Dirk Moses), fascism (Philip Morgan) and the World Wars (Doris L. Bergen).
Part II looks at the ‘Protagonists’ of the Holocaust, beginning with key figures such as Hitler and Himmler (Alan E. Steinweis) and moving to significant groups of people: activists at various levels of the regime or ‘problem solvers’ (Christopher Browning), killers (Edward B. Westermann), on-lookers (Paul A. Levine), rescuers (Debórah Dwork), Jews (Dan Michman), Women (Lenore J. Weitzman), children (Nicholas Stargardt), Catholics (Kevin P. Spicer), Protestants (Robert P. Ericksen), the Allies (Shlomo Aronson) and Gypsies, homosexuals, and Slavs (John Connelly). This section of the book in particular, seeks to take account of the reframing of categories in Holocaust Studies such that the paradigm of ‘perpetrators, victims, and bystanders’ is broken up to give a more nuanced account of the various roles occupied by individuals at different stages of the evolving murder process. In particular the chapters on children and Jews show how recent research is able to shed light on agency and self-reflection in these groups of people thus breaking a previous scholarly tradition that conceived of victims merely as passive.
Part III entitled ‘Settings’ moves the reader through various geographical locations of the Holocaust from different European countries to specific sites of murder: Greater Germany (Wolf Gruner), living space (Wendy Lower), occupied and satellite states (Radu Ionanid), ghettos (Martin C. Dean), labor sites (Mark Spoerer), and camps (Karin Orth).
Parts IV and V turn the reader’s attention to ‘Representations’ and the ‘Aftereffects’ of the Holocaust. Representations include accounts produced as the events of the Holocaust were unfolding – German documents and diaries (Peter Fritzsche) and Jews’ diaries and chronicles (Amos Goldberg) – but mostly the attention is on postwar work in the areas of testimony (Henry Greenspan), literature (Sara R. Horowitz), film (Lawrence Baron), art (Dora Apel), music (Bret Werb), and memorials and museums (James Young).
The effects of the Holocaust are then traced in the most extensive part of the volume and include a look at subjects as varied as plunder and restituion (Peter Hayes), denial (Deborah Lipstadt), Judaism (Michael Berenbaum), Christianity (Stephen R. Haynes), the social sciences (James E. Waller) and human rights law (David H. Jones), to name but a few of the fifteen chapters.
Inevitably, with a volume such as this, criticism is likely to be voiced with regard to the structure of the book, the choice of topics and the contributors enlisted. This, when offered in the spirit of appreciation and the desire to further scholarly discussion, is no bad thing and can also be understood as high praise indeed for the editors of and contributors to this anthology. It is certainly possible to think of different ways of structuring a handbook of Holocaust Studies. However, the volume under review is a pioneering achievement which sets the standard for future such handbooks by capturing the current major debates of the field in an incisive and insightful way. It can only be highly recommended to scholars and librarians – it is an essential book.
Coming Next Month
In our next issue, Ewan Kelly’s contribution to our occasional series on Issues in Pastoral Theology is “The Development of Healthcare Chaplaincy”. Dohyung Kim considers “Genesis 37-50: The Story of Jacob and his Sons in light of the primary narrative (Genesis- 2Kings)”. Bradly S. Billings compares “Secular and Non-Canonical Literature in the New Testament and some (Post)modern Parallels”. The Books of the Month are Michael Horton’s For Calvinism and Roger E. Olson’s Against Calvinism, reviewed by Derek W. H. Thomas.