In this riveting book Nechama Tec offers insights into the differences between the experiences of Jewish women and men during the Holocaust. Her research draws on a variety of sources: wartime diaries; postwar memoirs; a range of archival materials; and most important; direct interviews with Holocaust survivors. Tec reveals how women and men on the road to annihilation developed distinct coping strategies and how mutual cooperation and compassion operated across gender lines.“Tec is able to paint a more nuanced picture of the realities of Jewish resistance than previous historians. . . . A remarkable and important book.â€Â—Tikkun"Tec offers compelling evidence that gender-related analyses add significantly to our understanding of Jewish experiences during the Holocaust.â€Â—Jewish Book World“While this is a work of powerful emotionality; it is also a groundbreaking study of how gender is inexplicably bound to history and experience.â€Â—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
#860227 in Books imusti 2002-03-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 6.84 x .94 x 5.68l; .64 #File Name: 0300093004352 pagesYale University Press
Review
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. PREVENTING DOOMSDAYBy Yehezkel DrorOn principle I do not review books by university colleagues; all the more so when dealing with a subject outside my main territory. Therefore; on the book itself; I limit myself to the assessment that this is one of the most comprehensive and insightful treatments of the Holocaust among those I have read on this subject and on Nazi Germany and its Fuehrer.This book also serves as a good platform for exploring a fateful subject within my concerns: threats to the future of the human species; including the use of doomsday devices by fanatics. As well stated in the book “The basic issue of Holocaust history is to tell it in such a way as to advance the prospect; dim though it may seem; to prevent genocides; Holocaust-like events in particular.†(p. 112). As is clear from declarations by Hitler in his bunker before committing suicide (a subject outside the scope of this book); if he had a doomsday device he would have used it; preferring a world without humans over one ruled by his enemies who defeated Germany which showed itself as too weak for its mission as postulated the the Nazi global utopia. His closest followers; such as Goebbels; who killed his children before committing suicide with his wife in Hitler’s bunker; would surely have helped Hitler doing away with the human species – if they had a doomsday device; which luckily they did not have.But emerging science and technology is likely to provide easily available doomsday tools; such as deadly air-carried viruses mutated in kitchen laboratories. Therefore; even a small sect of fanatics committed to freeing Gaya from nature-devastating humanity and ready to die in order to do so; is likely in the not very distant future to be able to kill of most if not all of humanity.They do not need; as the Nazis did; devoted elite of a few hundred and many willing cooperators; as were necessary for the Holocaust. Enough one or two dozen true believers including a few bioengineers – and the continuing existence of humanity is in doubt.Therefore the three commandments which Bauer advised to add to the ten Biblical ones are inadequate. He suggests “Thou shall not be a perpetrator; Thou shall not be a passive victim; and Thou most certainly shall not be a bystander†(p. 67; expanded version in Speech to the German Bundestag; p. 273). There are essential but not sufficient. To protect humanity against annihilation by fanatics three more Commandments must be added: Thou shall strictly control and limit production and diffusion of knowledge and tools enabling mega-killings; Though shall prohibit dissemination of ideologies supporting mass-killings and and all the more so elimination of humanity; and Thou shall treat all who prepare mass-killings and in particular elimination of humanity as “enemies of humanity;†to be globally hunted down and neutralized.This book provides one of the needed moral and intellectual foundations and empiric bases for such essential measures. Thus it is of even greater importance than intended by the author.Professor Yehezkel DrorThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Prof Bauer is a living legend in Israel and one ...By Arthur MillerProf Bauer is a living legend in Israel and one of the most knowledgeable; recognized and respected authorities on Holocaust history. I will read anything and everything he writes. If you are a student or teacher of Holocaust studies; this is a "must read".2 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Very important bookBy Efraim ZadoffThis book presents the SHOA - the Holocaust - the genocide of the Jewish people in the Second World War; in a wide perspective of other genocides in the 20th century.Bauer presents; besides its own ideas; the opinion of some of the most prominent scholars; some of them non Jewish.He also presents a diversity of subjects and considerations in the research of the SHOA.
