What do you think?
Rate this book
Documents of destruction: Germany and Jewry, 1933-1945
"a compendium of documents which portray the Nazi holocaust in all its relentlessness and complexity. Nowhere else can the quiet horror of the destruction process be perceived quite so well as in these records. Selections cover all the major regions of Nazi-dominated Europe.".
242 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 1971
14 people want to read
About the author
Raul Hilberg
29 books55 followersRaul Hilberg was an Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the world's preeminent scholar of the Holocaust, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the Nazi Final Solution.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 8, 2024
A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
Historian Raul Hilberg wrote in the Preface to this 1971 book, “Most of the materials assembled in this reader consist of papers written by German perpetrators or Jewish victims during the destruction of European Jewry… I have put it together with two specifications in mind. One consideration was balance, so that the destruction of the Jews might be seen from beginning to finish… and as both German and Jewish experiences. A second aim was newness… most of the pages were allotted to items which have never before been mentioned in print…. The German material at my disposal was composed primarily of official documents; the Jewish sources were mainly autobiographical. German documents were found by the Allies … after Germany’s collapse… The documentation of the Jewish community … is incomplete and localized… scattered in more than a dozen countries… Unlike the German observers, the Jewish witnesses of destruction have not been reluctant to record all they have seen and felt… The survivors have poured out their reflections in countless books and depositions in a major spontaneous effort at remembrance…. The German records… convey a sense of sweep; the Jewish narrations… impart immediacy.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He explains in the Introduction, “Two developments were intertwined in the Nazi assault on the Jews. One was a German administrative process evolving from ponderously slow beginnings to a massive climax, the other a progressive enfeeblement of the Jewish population in the German vise. The German buildup ensnared the Jews in laws, decrees, and regulations… As German moves became ominous, the Jews clung to hope. The Germans pressed on relentlessly and the Jews despaired… never before had an act been so extreme, a loss so total. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, a modern bureaucracy set out for the first time to destroy an entire people… The anchorage of the entire undertaking was a definition of the term ‘Jew.’ … Under the classification decree, a person was considered a Jew if at least three of his grandparents had belonged to the Jewish religion, or if two of his grandparents were Jews at one time and he himself adhered to the Jewish faith or was married to a Jewish partner…” (Pg. 3-4)
“Jews became increasingly the object of an industrial-bureaucratic attack. It began with job dismissals… Later it encompassed forced sales of companies… compulsory labor… and confiscation of property… In 1939 the destruction process spilled into Poland… the Germans herded the Jews into ghettos… When Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Russia, the machinery of destruction was freed from all restraints… Little more than a month after launching of operations in Russia, Hermann Göring signed the order for a ‘final solution’ of the ‘Jewish problem.’ … Everywhere the Jews were to be defined, expropriated, and concentrated. When all preliminary steps had been taken, the Jews were to be transported to the east to be killed.” (Pg. 4-5)
He notes, “From their earliest days the Nazis were interested in names: company names, street names, personal names. They wanted to eliminate Jewish names from institutions or locales which were considered German… The identifications were a natural consequence of the oft-repeated assertion that Jewry was camouflaging itself in German trappings and exerting its influence from hidden power positions, but the name decrees---particularly the compulsory adoption of the Jewish middle names Israel and Sara---also served to facilitate expulsion and destruction.” (Pg. 14)
He explains, “while heretofore the population had been divided only into ‘Aryans’ and ‘non-Aryans,’ there were now two kinds of non-Aryans: Jews and so-called ‘Mischlinge.’ Half-Jews who did not belong to the Jewish religion or who were not married to a Jewish person on September 15, 1935, were to be called Mischlinge of the first degree. One-quarter Jews became Mischlinge of the second degree… Throughout the twelve years of Nazi rule, records establishing descent or religious adherence were all-important in deciding who was a Jew, a Mischlinge, or a German… The Yellow Star of David had to be worn by Jews after September 14, 1941. Mischlinge did not have to wear it.” (Pg. 18-19)
He recounts, “The organized killings of the Jews began on June 22, 1941, the day of the assault on the U.S.S.R. The invading army groups were accompanied by mobile units of the Security Police and Security Service, which carried out the shootings… In 1942 local commands of the Security Police and Security Service in cities and towns of the occupied U.S.S.R. systematically thinned out and obliterated the remaining Jewish communities.” (Pg. 46)
He states, “When the Germans wanted to refer to the annihilation of European Jewry, they talked about the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem.’ … that phrase.. means crossing a psychological threshold, scoring an administrative breakthrough, making no exceptions, and halting before no consequences… the target which Germany was now striking down would never again arise for yet another generation. The idea of the final solution surfaced in a number of localities and offices during the middle of 1941.” (Pg. 85)
He reports, “During the seizures of 1942, the Slovak government, strongly Catholic, spared thousands of baptized Jews. It was then subjected to repeated demands from the German Legation for the deportation of the remaining Jewish population, while it also faced questions from the Slovak clergy about the unbaptized Jews whom it had already abandoned to what was at best an unknown fate.” (Pg. 183-184)
He explains, “On the railway platform of Auschwitz, some of the new deportees who looked as if they might be capable of work were separated from the victims who were to be gassed immediately. This procedure was known as selection. Several survivors have described those first hours in the camp---the growing awareness of what Auschwitz meant, the gradual realization of what selection signified.” (Pg. 213)
He points out, “Between 1942 and 1944 transports were moving almost constantly into the barbed-wire enclosures of the death camps. To kill all these people smoothly… the SS had to rely on the psychological unpreparedness of the deportees. It was essential that the victims not know precisely what was going to happen to them, and that they not believe such information as they had. Camp commanders were consequently nervous over any leakages of information… The death centers also had inmates who had survived an initial selection and could not help observing the continuous gassings and burnings. Although the camps were surrounded and laced with fences and machine guns, revolts did break out in them. Treblinka had such an uprising on August 7, 1943,
Sobibor on October 14, 1943.” (Pg. 221-222)
He reports, “Since the end of the war, Jews have received restitution, reparations, and indemnification. The German term for all three of these measures is ‘amends.’ … they are designed to provide benefits only for the surviving victims---they are not compensation to Jewry for five million dead. Restitution was the earliest regulation. It consisted of the return of identifiable property … to the original owner… Reparations were West German contributions to the absorption of survivors in Israel and elsewhere. Indemnification payments… have been made to victims of their heirs for a personal or property loss inflicted on them by the Nazi regime.” (Pg. 238)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying the Holocaust.
Historian Raul Hilberg wrote in the Preface to this 1971 book, “Most of the materials assembled in this reader consist of papers written by German perpetrators or Jewish victims during the destruction of European Jewry… I have put it together with two specifications in mind. One consideration was balance, so that the destruction of the Jews might be seen from beginning to finish… and as both German and Jewish experiences. A second aim was newness… most of the pages were allotted to items which have never before been mentioned in print…. The German material at my disposal was composed primarily of official documents; the Jewish sources were mainly autobiographical. German documents were found by the Allies … after Germany’s collapse… The documentation of the Jewish community … is incomplete and localized… scattered in more than a dozen countries… Unlike the German observers, the Jewish witnesses of destruction have not been reluctant to record all they have seen and felt… The survivors have poured out their reflections in countless books and depositions in a major spontaneous effort at remembrance…. The German records… convey a sense of sweep; the Jewish narrations… impart immediacy.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He explains in the Introduction, “Two developments were intertwined in the Nazi assault on the Jews. One was a German administrative process evolving from ponderously slow beginnings to a massive climax, the other a progressive enfeeblement of the Jewish population in the German vise. The German buildup ensnared the Jews in laws, decrees, and regulations… As German moves became ominous, the Jews clung to hope. The Germans pressed on relentlessly and the Jews despaired… never before had an act been so extreme, a loss so total. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, a modern bureaucracy set out for the first time to destroy an entire people… The anchorage of the entire undertaking was a definition of the term ‘Jew.’ … Under the classification decree, a person was considered a Jew if at least three of his grandparents had belonged to the Jewish religion, or if two of his grandparents were Jews at one time and he himself adhered to the Jewish faith or was married to a Jewish partner…” (Pg. 3-4)
“Jews became increasingly the object of an industrial-bureaucratic attack. It began with job dismissals… Later it encompassed forced sales of companies… compulsory labor… and confiscation of property… In 1939 the destruction process spilled into Poland… the Germans herded the Jews into ghettos… When Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Russia, the machinery of destruction was freed from all restraints… Little more than a month after launching of operations in Russia, Hermann Göring signed the order for a ‘final solution’ of the ‘Jewish problem.’ … Everywhere the Jews were to be defined, expropriated, and concentrated. When all preliminary steps had been taken, the Jews were to be transported to the east to be killed.” (Pg. 4-5)
He notes, “From their earliest days the Nazis were interested in names: company names, street names, personal names. They wanted to eliminate Jewish names from institutions or locales which were considered German… The identifications were a natural consequence of the oft-repeated assertion that Jewry was camouflaging itself in German trappings and exerting its influence from hidden power positions, but the name decrees---particularly the compulsory adoption of the Jewish middle names Israel and Sara---also served to facilitate expulsion and destruction.” (Pg. 14)
He explains, “while heretofore the population had been divided only into ‘Aryans’ and ‘non-Aryans,’ there were now two kinds of non-Aryans: Jews and so-called ‘Mischlinge.’ Half-Jews who did not belong to the Jewish religion or who were not married to a Jewish person on September 15, 1935, were to be called Mischlinge of the first degree. One-quarter Jews became Mischlinge of the second degree… Throughout the twelve years of Nazi rule, records establishing descent or religious adherence were all-important in deciding who was a Jew, a Mischlinge, or a German… The Yellow Star of David had to be worn by Jews after September 14, 1941. Mischlinge did not have to wear it.” (Pg. 18-19)
He recounts, “The organized killings of the Jews began on June 22, 1941, the day of the assault on the U.S.S.R. The invading army groups were accompanied by mobile units of the Security Police and Security Service, which carried out the shootings… In 1942 local commands of the Security Police and Security Service in cities and towns of the occupied U.S.S.R. systematically thinned out and obliterated the remaining Jewish communities.” (Pg. 46)
He states, “When the Germans wanted to refer to the annihilation of European Jewry, they talked about the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem.’ … that phrase.. means crossing a psychological threshold, scoring an administrative breakthrough, making no exceptions, and halting before no consequences… the target which Germany was now striking down would never again arise for yet another generation. The idea of the final solution surfaced in a number of localities and offices during the middle of 1941.” (Pg. 85)
He reports, “During the seizures of 1942, the Slovak government, strongly Catholic, spared thousands of baptized Jews. It was then subjected to repeated demands from the German Legation for the deportation of the remaining Jewish population, while it also faced questions from the Slovak clergy about the unbaptized Jews whom it had already abandoned to what was at best an unknown fate.” (Pg. 183-184)
He explains, “On the railway platform of Auschwitz, some of the new deportees who looked as if they might be capable of work were separated from the victims who were to be gassed immediately. This procedure was known as selection. Several survivors have described those first hours in the camp---the growing awareness of what Auschwitz meant, the gradual realization of what selection signified.” (Pg. 213)
He points out, “Between 1942 and 1944 transports were moving almost constantly into the barbed-wire enclosures of the death camps. To kill all these people smoothly… the SS had to rely on the psychological unpreparedness of the deportees. It was essential that the victims not know precisely what was going to happen to them, and that they not believe such information as they had. Camp commanders were consequently nervous over any leakages of information… The death centers also had inmates who had survived an initial selection and could not help observing the continuous gassings and burnings. Although the camps were surrounded and laced with fences and machine guns, revolts did break out in them. Treblinka had such an uprising on August 7, 1943,
Sobibor on October 14, 1943.” (Pg. 221-222)
He reports, “Since the end of the war, Jews have received restitution, reparations, and indemnification. The German term for all three of these measures is ‘amends.’ … they are designed to provide benefits only for the surviving victims---they are not compensation to Jewry for five million dead. Restitution was the earliest regulation. It consisted of the return of identifiable property … to the original owner… Reparations were West German contributions to the absorption of survivors in Israel and elsewhere. Indemnification payments… have been made to victims of their heirs for a personal or property loss inflicted on them by the Nazi regime.” (Pg. 238)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying the Holocaust.
Displaying 1 of 1 review