^#smrgSAHAF The War Against the Jews 1933 - 45 - 1990

(Tenth Anniversary Edition) The systematic destruction of six million Jews, carried out by the German state under Adolf Hitler during the Second World War, is still almost impossible to comprehend. In this extraordinary book Lucy S. Dawidowicz lays out the facts in a concise, coherent overview of the war against the Jews. She examines how it was possible for a modern state to carry out the systematic murder of a whole people, detailing Hitler's ideology, the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany, anti-Jewish legislation and the annihilation camps. She also discusses how Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe responded to the assault against their rights, their livelihoods and finally their lives. Stark, sober and yet overwhelming, this is an authoritative and essential work of history. A powerful and regretfully neglected reconceptualization of Hitler's war and mind. The late Dawidowicz makes a stark, carefully documented case - one now disputed, if not obscured, by the 'functionalists' and the 'normalizers' who marginalize Hitler's decisive role in the Holocaust - that Hitler's goal was genocidal from the outset. She argues that as far back as November 1918, the moment of German national defeat and breakdown, Hitler, in the midst of a personal breakdown, made it his mission to murder the Jews as vengeance for what he believed to be a treacherous stab in the back that sabotaged the German army. Dawidowicz makes the case that the apparent hesitations and minor zigzags in his Jewish policy were merely opportunistic covers for his unshakeable determination to exterminate the Jews, and that the war he waged in Europe was above all a 'war against the Jews'. Review by Ron Rosenbaum, whose works include 'Explaining Hitler' (Kirkus UK) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.