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From International Socialism (1st series), No.102, October 1977, p.30.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The War Against The Jews 1933-45
Lucy Davidowicz
Penguin £1.95
This book is a detailed account of the rise of anti-semitism and the response of Jews to the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Problem’ as it developed in Germany and Europe, between 1933-45. Packed with facts and figures it banishes the current fascist ‘histories’, with their claim that the six million Jewish deaths are a ‘myth’, to the dustbin, where they belong.
The persecution in Germany and Eastern Europe under the Nazis as well as the various Jewish responses (such as the rising of the Warsaw ghetto) are described in their horrific detail. The book is full of information, but if you are looking for any political analysis of the rise of anti-semitism or German society of the time, look elsewhere.
Written from an essentially liberal-democratic viewpoint the persecution of the Jews and the Second World War are seen as products of either demonic impulses on the part of the Nazi leaders or ‘the mass Psychosis’ of Germans. The account is entirely centred on the Jews, how they fared, how they reacted – to the exclusion of all else. But within these limitations it brings together an impressive battery of facts, at a time when certain ‘academic’ circles and out-and-out fascists are trying to make Hitler respectable. The trains may have run on time, but they were carrying human beings like cattle to the slaughter.
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Last updated on 26.12.2007