Ebook Reckonings Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice Mary Fulbrook 9780190681241 Books
Download As PDF : Reckonings Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice Mary Fulbrook 9780190681241 Books
A single word--"Auschwitz"--is sometimes used to encapsulate the totality of persecution and suffering involved in what we call the Holocaust. Yet focusing on a single concentration camp, however horrific the scale of crimes committed there, leaves an incomplete story, truncates a complex history and obscures the continuing legacies of Nazi crimes.
Mary Fulbrook's encompassing book explores the lives of individuals across a full spectrum of suffering and guilt, each one capturing one small part of the greater story. Using "reckoning" in the widest possible sense to evoke how the consequences of violence have expanded almost infinitely through time, from early brutality through programs to euthanize the sick and infirm in the 1930s to the full functioning of the death camps in the early 1940s, and across the post-war decades of selective confrontation with perpetrators and ever-expanding commemoration of victims, Fulbrook exposes the disjuncture between official myths about "dealing with the past" and the extent to which the vast majority of Nazi perpetrators evaded responsibility. In the successor states to the Third Reich -- East Germany, West Germany, and Austria -- prosecution varied widely. Communist East Germany pursued Nazi criminals and handed down severe sentences; West Germany, caught between facing up to the past and seeking to draw a line under it, tended toward selective justice and reintegration of former Nazis; and Austria made nearly no reckoning at all until the mid-1980s, when news broke about Austrian presidential candidate Kurt Waldheim's past. The continuing battle with the legacies of Nazism in the private sphere was often at odds with public remembrance and memorials.
Following the various phases of trials and testimonies, from those immediately after the war to those that stretched into the decades following, Reckonings illuminates shifting public attitudes toward both perpetrators and survivors, and recalibrates anew the scales of justice.
Ebook Reckonings Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice Mary Fulbrook 9780190681241 Books
"Again, the five-star rating here signifies not "enjoyment" so much as awe. This book is heavy in many ways; massive in terms of number of pages to the extent that my arthritic elderly hands can't hold it for long, and with the small print I need to find a shelf or a table in adequate light to allow me to read it comfortably. In addition, it is extremely thorough, carefully annotated, and significantly illustrated. Published by Oxford University Press, it is obviously appropriate for use as either a sociology or history text.
The book is divided into three major sections titled, respectively: "Chasms: Patterns of Persecution"; "Confrontations: Landscapes of the Law"; and "Connections: Memories and Explorations". Each of these sections is in turn subdivided into six chapters. Perusal of the Table of Contents, therefore, allows the reader to select specific topic areas of interest if a simple read-through is not the objective.
As author Mary Fullbrook points out, an in-depth study of this sort is essential as the generation of "witnesses" to the original Nazi activities dies out, but the resurgence of ethnically and religiously-based persecution becomes ever more troubling in the present political situation. This book deserves continued study and evaluation, and will hopefully be used as it is obviously intended to raise the awareness of current and future students of politics, social psychology, and law."
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Tags : Reckonings Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice [Mary Fulbrook] on . A single word-- Auschwitz --is sometimes used to encapsulate the totality of persecution and suffering involved in what we call the Holocaust. Yet focusing on a single concentration camp,Mary Fulbrook,Reckonings Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice,Oxford University Press,0190681241,Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Influence,Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945);Influence.,War crime trials - Europe - History - 20th century,War crime trials;Europe;History;20th century.,GERMANY - HISTORY - THIRD REICH,General Adult,Germany,HISTORY / Europe / Germany,HISTORY / Europe / Western,HISTORY / Holocaust,History,History, Other | Military History | WWII,History/Europe - Germany,History/Holocaust,History/Western Europe - General,History/World,JEWISH HOLOCAUST,LAW / International,Legal aspects,Non-Fiction,UNIVERSITY PRESS,United States
Reckonings Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice Mary Fulbrook 9780190681241 Books Reviews :
Reckonings Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice Mary Fulbrook 9780190681241 Books Reviews
- Reckonings is a punishing book to read, not just because its length (close to 600 pp. of text, plus scholarly appendices and copious photos) but because of its subject the myriad ways that people avoided responsibility for Europe’s most heinous crime in modern times, the Jewish Holocaust. It is clear, first, that acceptance of any form of responsibility, much less guilt, by the surviving Germans, Poles, etc., came late –in West Germany a generation or two later, in Poland never. Fulbrook (prof., German history, Univ. College London; A Small Town Near Auschwitz Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust) deplores what took place in generations following but is cognizant of the complicated way in which state considerations –e.g., how do we get the economy running again when almost every one of our industrial leader has dirty hands?—She understands also the mental recalibration required of the trial judges to determine what should be considered crimes and what should constitute adequate evidence for conviction
Her account is thorough and balanced and copiously illustrated with stories of those who did make it out of the camps but whose lives were never the same afterwards. This is a challenging study that offers questions to consider as we continue to deal with this unspeakable blot on mankind’s history. - Again, the five-star rating here signifies not "enjoyment" so much as awe. This book is heavy in many ways; massive in terms of number of pages to the extent that my arthritic elderly hands can't hold it for long, and with the small print I need to find a shelf or a table in adequate light to allow me to read it comfortably. In addition, it is extremely thorough, carefully annotated, and significantly illustrated. Published by Oxford University Press, it is obviously appropriate for use as either a sociology or history text.
The book is divided into three major sections titled, respectively "Chasms Patterns of Persecution"; "Confrontations Landscapes of the Law"; and "Connections Memories and Explorations". Each of these sections is in turn subdivided into six chapters. Perusal of the Table of Contents, therefore, allows the reader to select specific topic areas of interest if a simple read-through is not the objective.
As author Mary Fullbrook points out, an in-depth study of this sort is essential as the generation of "witnesses" to the original Nazi activities dies out, but the resurgence of ethnically and religiously-based persecution becomes ever more troubling in the present political situation. This book deserves continued study and evaluation, and will hopefully be used as it is obviously intended to raise the awareness of current and future students of politics, social psychology, and law. - When World War 2 ended, the atrocities of the Nazis and their resident populations were obvious. You would think that it was obvious that someone would have to pay. But countries had varying degrees of accountability. East Germany was better than most at trying and punishing ex-Nazis. West Germany was sporadic, allowing some like scientist Werner von Braun to be forgiven and others punished. They also teach the Holocaust in school and have laws about Holocaust denial. Austria did almost nothing about accountability, clinging to first victimhood and denying the actions of ordinary people. Note that Hitler himself was Austrian. As a result, they ended up with ex-SS officer Kurt Waldheim as both president and secretary general of the UN. Poland has passed a law making it illegal to say that Poland had anything to do with the Holocaust, despite the presence of major concentration camps on its soil.
The purpose of this book is to hold both individuals and nations accountable. To this end, the author documents atrocities, arrests, lack of prosecution and generally lays out material that would be of use in prosecuting those who evaded scrutiny or at least information that would affect the memory of departed perpetrators.
