Gray Zones: Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and its Aftermath

Published by Berghahn Books 2005

Gray Zones

Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and its Aftermath

Edited by: Jonathan Petropoulos and John Roth

Volume 8 in the series War and Genocide

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782382010

Overview
Contents

About this book

Few essays about the Holocaust are better known or more important than Primo Levi’s reflections on what he called “the gray zone,” a reality in which moral ambiguity and compromise were pronounced. In this volume accomplished Holocaust scholars, among them Raul Hilberg, Gerhard L. Weinberg, Christopher Browning, Peter Hayes, and Lynn Rapaport, explore the terrain that Levi identified. Together they bring a necessary interdisciplinary focus to bear on timely and often controversial topics in cutting-edge Holocaust studies that range from historical analysis to popular culture. While each essay utilizes a particular methodology and argues for its own thesis, the volume as a whole advances the claim that the more we learn about the Holocaust, the more complex that event turns out to be. Only if ambiguities and compromises in the Holocaust and its aftermath are identified, explored, and at times allowed to remain--lest resolution deceive us--will our awareness of the Holocaust and its implications be as full as possible.

Author / Editor information

Jonathan Petropoulos is the John V. Croul Professor of European History and Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, at Claremont McKenna College.

John Roth is that Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, at Claremont McKenna College.

Jonathan Petropoulos is the John V. Croul Professor of European History and Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, at Claremont McKenna College.

Reviews

"...a useful addition to Holocaust historiography and literature. It is accessible for students and teachers as well as the general reader. It provides a taste of what the world of Holocaust scholarship is actively engaged in--the constant exploration and understanding of the history of the murder of the Jews of Europe and the ongoing effect of these events on the world today. Hopefully, this book will stimulate others to read further and deeper." · H-German

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
LIST OF FIGURES Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
PROLOGUE The Gray Zones of the Holocaust Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Part One: Ambiguity and Compromise in Writing and Depicting Holocaust History
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 The Ambiguities of Evil and Justice: Degussa, Robert Pross, and the Jewish Slave Laborers at Gleiwitz Peter Hayes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
Chapter 2 “Alleviation” and “Compliance”: The Survival Strategies of the Jewish Leadership in the Wierzbnik Ghetto and the Starachowice Factory Slave Labor Camps Christopher R. Browning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
Chapter 3 Between Sanity and Insanity: Spheres of Everyday Life in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando Gideon Greif Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
Chapter 4 Sonderkommando: Testimony from Evidence Michael Berenbaum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
Chapter 5 A Commentary on “Gray Zones” in Raul Hilberg’s Work Gerhard L Weinberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
Chapter 6 Incompleteness in Holocaust Historiography Raul Hilberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Part Two: Identity, Gender, and Sexuality During and After the Third Reich
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
Chapter 7 Choiceless Choices: Surviving on False Papers on the “Aryan” Side Robert Melson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
Chapter 8 “Who Am I?” The Struggle for Religious Identity of Jewish Children Hidden by Christians During the Shoah Eva Fleischner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
Chapter 9 Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers Bryan Mark Rigg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
Chapter 10 A Gray Zone Among the Field Gray Men: Confusion in the Discrimination Against Homosexuals in the Wehrmacht Geoffrey J. Giles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
Chapter 11 Pleasure and Evil: Christianity and the Sexualization of Holocaust Memory Dagmar Herzog Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
Chapter 12 The Gender of Good and Evil: Women and Holocaust Memory Sara R. Horowitz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Part Three: Gray Spaces: Geographical and Imaginative Landscapes
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Chapter 13 Hitler’s “Garden of Eden” in Ukraine: Nazi Colonialism, Volksdeutsche, and the Holocaust, 1941–1944 Wendy Lower Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Chapter 14 Life and Death in the “Gray Zone” of Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-Occupied Europe: The Unknown, the Ambiguous, and the Disappeared Martin Dean Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Chapter 15 “Almost-Camps” in Paris: The Difficult Description of Three Annexes of Drancy—Austerlitz, Lévitan, and Bassano, July 1943 to August 1944 Jean-Marc Dreyfus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
Chapter 16 Alternate Holocausts and the Mistrust of Memory Gavriel D. Rosenfeld Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	240
Chapter 17 Laughter and Heartache: The Functions of Humor in Holocaust Tragedy Lynn Rapaport Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	252
Chapter 18 The Holocaust in Popular Culture: Master-Narrative and Counter-Narratives in the Gray Zone Ronald Smelser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	270
Chapter 19 The Grey Zone: The Cinema of Choiceless Choices Lawrence Baron Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	286
Part Four: Justice, Religion, and Ethics During and After the Holocaust
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Chapter 20 Gray into Black: The Case of Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski Richard L. Rubenstein Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
Chapter 21 Catalyzing Fascism: Academic Science in National Socialist Germany and Afterward Jeffrey Lewis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311
Chapter 22 Postwar Justice and the Treatment of Nazi Assets Jonathan Petropoulos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	325
Chapter 23 The Gray Zones of Holocaust Restitution: American Justice and Holocaust Morality Michael J. Bazyler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	339
Chapter 24 The Creation of Ethical “Gray Zones” in the German Protestant Church: Reflections on the Historical Quest for Ethical Clarity Victoria J. Barnett Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	360
Chapter 25 Gray-Zoned Ethics: Morality’s Double Binds During and After the Holocaust John K. Roth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	372
Epilogue: An Intense Wish to Understand Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	390
Select Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	395
About the Editors and Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	399
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	407

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 440
Keywords: Genocide History; Jewish Studies

eBook

Published: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 9781782382010