Survivor testimonies and philosophical responses to the Holocaust, testifying to the tenacity and self-renewal of the human spirit. Essays from the 1989 Scholar's Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches.

Victims of the Holocaust were faced with moral dilemmas for which no one could prepare. Yet many of the life-and-death situations forced upon them required immediate actions and nearly impossible choices. In Problems Unique to the Holocaust, today's leading Holocaust scholars examine the difficult questions surrounding this terrible chapter in world history. Is it ever legitimate to betray others to save yourself? If a group of Jews is hiding behind a wall and a baby begins to cry, should an adult smother the child to protect the safety of the others? How guilty are the bystanders who saw what was happening but did nothing to aid the victims of persecution? In addition to these questions, one contributor considers whether commentators can be objective in analyzing the Holocaust or if this is a topic to be left only to Jews. In the final essay, another scholar assesses the challenge of ethics in a post-Holocaust world. This singular collection of essays, which closes with a meditation on Daniel Goldhagen's controversial book Hitler's Willing Executioners, asks bold questions and encourages readers to look at the tragedy of the Holocaust in a new light.

What is the symbolic impact of the Vietnam War Memorial? How does television change our engagement with the past? Can the efforts to wipe out Communist legacies succeed? Should victims of the Holocaust be celebrated as heroes or as martyrs? These questions have a great deal in common, yet they are typically asked separately by people working in distinct research areas in different disciplines. Frames of Remembrance shares ideas and concerns across such divides.

The great majority of Holocaust scholarship concentrates heavily, if not almost completely, on the Final Solution from the German side. The distinctive feature of this book, both individually and as a collection, is its concentration on the Holocaust from a Judeo-centric point of view. The present essays make a unique contribution by exploring issues such as: the effect of events specifically on Jewish women and children; the character of the Nazi policy of slave labor in as much as this essential program resulted in different treatment with regard to Jews as compared to other workers; how the destruction of European Jewry has been responded to by Jewish thinkers; and how Jewish values, such as the well-known principle that "all Jews are responsible for each other," were exemplified and lived out during the war. The collection also includes an essay on Elie Wiesel, and another that explores the much discussed, very controversial issue of Jewish resistance, as well as several essays on philosophical and comparative issues raised by the Shoah. (CS1075)

Arguing against the prevailing view that Holocaust survivors (encouraged by a new and flourishing culture of 'witnessing') have come forward only recently to tell their stories,Writing the Holocaust examines the full history of Holocaust testimony, from the first chroniclers confined to Nazi-enforced ghettos to today's survivors writing as part of collective memory. Zoë Waxman shows how the conditions and motivations for bearing witness changed immeasurably. She reveals the multiplicity of Holocaust experiences, the historically contingent nature of victims' responses, and the extent to which their identities - secular or religious, male or female, East or West European - affected not only what they observed but also how they have written about their experiences. In particular, she demonstrates that what survivors remember is substantially determined by the context in which they are remembering.

Is there a religious meaning to the idea of a chosen people after the Shoah? / Eliezer Schweid -- The issue of confirmation and disconfirmation in Jewish thought after the Shoah / Steven T. Katz -- Philosophical and midrashic thinking on the fateful events of Jewish history / Joseph A. Turner -- The Holocaust : lessons, explanation, meaning / Shalom Rosenberg -- Between Holocaust and redemption : silence, cognition, and eclipse / Gershon Greenberg -- Ultra-Orthodox Jewish thought about the Holocaust since World War II : the radicalized aspect / Gershon Greenberg -- Theological reflections on the Holocaust : between unity and controversy / Michael Rosenak -- Building amidst devastation : halakic historical observations on marriage during the Holocaust / Ester Farbstein -- Two Jewish approaches to evil in history / Zev Harvey -- A call to humility and Jewish unity in the aftermath of the Holocaust / Shmuel Jakobovits -- Is there a religious meaning to the rebirth of the state of Israel after the Shoah? / Shalom Ratzabi -- The concept of exile as a model for dealing with the Holocaust / Yehoyada Amir -- Is there a theological connection between the Holocaust and the reestablishment of the state of Israel? / David Novak -- The Holocaust and the state of Israel : a historical view of their impact on and meaning for the understanding of the behavior of Jewish religious movements / Dan Michman -- Theology and the Holocaust : the presence of God and diving [i.e. divine] providence in history from the perspective of religious Zionism / Yosef Achituv -- Educational implications of Holocaust and rebirth / Tova Ilan.

New areas of research are not the result of a snap of the finger. They are carved out of the marrow of human existence. The study of genocide well illustrates this raw fact. From the early efforts that emerged in the struggle against Nazism, and over the past half century, the field has now reached a point where there at least five genocide centers across the globe, and well over one hundred Holocaust centers. This work emerged out of an earlier effort at an oral history project; one that would enable a new generation of scholars, researchers and policy makers to assess the major foci of the field, efforts to develop ways and means to intervene and prevent future genocides, and review the successes and failures of the field. The editors of Pioneers of Genocide Studies emphasize that contributors should approach the questions of greatest relevance in a personal way, crafting a statement that reveals ones individual voice, persuasions, literary style, scholarly perspectives, and relevant details of ones life. The book succeeds admirably in the above aims, and, in so doing, epitomizes scholarly autobiographical writing at its best. The book also includes the most important works by each author on the issue of genocide. As a result, the collective portrait enhances the usefulness of the volume for those new to the field. Among the contributors are experts in the Armenian Bosnian, Cambodian genocides, as well as the Holocaust against the Jewish people. The contributors are Rouben Adalian, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Israel W. Charney, Vahakn Dadrian, Helen Fein, Barbara Harff, David Hawk, Herbert Hirsch, Irving Louis Horowitz, Richard Hovannisian, Henry Huttenbach, Leo Kuper, Raphael Lemkin, James E. Mace, Eric Markusen, Robert Melson, R.J. Rummel, Roger W. Smith, Gregory H. Stanton, Ervin Staub, Colin Tatz, Yves Ternan, and the co-editors. The work has been five years in the making and represents a high watermark in the reflections and self-reflections on the comparative study of genocide. Samuel Totten is professor of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He is the editor of First Person Accounts of Genocidal Acts and Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views, and book review editor for the Journal of Genocide Research. Steven Leonard Jacobs is associate professor and Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies in the department of religious studies at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. He is the author of Shirot Bialik: A New and Annotated Translation of Chaim Nachman Bialiks Epic Poems, Raphael Lemkins Thoughts on Nazi Genocide: Not Guilty? and Contemporary Christian and Contemporary Jewish Religious Responses to the Shoah.