Yehuda Bauer

The Impact of the Holocaust

The Holocaust has become a cultural code for the deadly combination of ideology with the technology, modernism, bureaucracy, and expertise to implement evil. The central role of Jews in Christianity turned the Holocaust into a virtual Christian suicide, and the Holocaust represents a global attack on Western civilization itself. The continuance of antisemitism and also the continuance of other forms of hatred leading, potentially, to genocide, often under the auspices of (semi-) governmental authority, underscore the centrality of genocide as a threat to civilization. The role of ideology is central in this threat, yet careful distinctions must be made: the destruction of Jews had a different ideological basis from that of the Nazi murders of other victims. Future prevention of genocide depends on careful analysis and on comparisons that are not hastily drawn. It is the responsibility of universities to provide an institutional framework for such analysis if the future prevention of genocide is to take root.

Genocide: Was it the Nazis' Original Plan?

Since the 1940s scholars have debated the ques tion, Did Hitler and his henchmen plan the Final Solution decades before 1941? Many have answered in the affirmative. However, examination of those developments that led to the Final Solution raises serious questions. Although some have declared that the Nazis with Hitler at the helm did indeed plan the mass execution even before the 1930s, nowhere is there any pronouncement of this before 1939! The plan the Nazis did have was to evict all Jews from Germany. Although sev eral hundred thousand did leave, those left behind as well as the millions conquered as the Nazis swept through Europe provided a dilemma. Hitler wanted them out. No one wanted them. The Schacht-Rublee negotiations and the Nisko/ Madagascar plans, efforts to clear Europe of Jews, had failed dismally before 1939. The last alternative was the Final Solution, which took form in 1941 with the adoption of the Einsatzgruppen plan for the mass murder of Jews in Russia, mainly by machine gun, and the Wannsee plan for the mass murder of Jews in Poland in the gas ovens and the crematoria established at six death camps.

How to Misinterpret History: on “‘The Holocaust, America, and American Jewry,’ Revisited”

I would first of all limit the discussion to points of disagreement, by emphasizing those issues on which we do not disagree. We do not disagree on the impact of the public campaign of Hillel Kook (a.k.a. Peter Bergson) to raise the consciousness of American Jews and, in part, of Americans in general, regarding the fate of European Jews under the Nazis. We do not disagree on the utterly deplorable policy of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise in trying to block the activities of the Bergson group—and even to eliminate it—especially, but not only, after it finally became an advocate of rescue, and after it was officially reconstituted as the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People in Europe in July 1943. For the record, this was a bit late; seven months beforehand in their December 17, 1942 declaration, the Allied Nations had already made public, including in America, the information about the mass murder of European Jews. As for Wise, Dr. Medoff is aware of the fact that he represented the official Zionist wing in American Jewry, but not the liberal non-Zionist one. However, Dr. Medoff mixes the two indiscriminately. The liberals, of course, were represented by the American Jewish Committee and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

On the Perils of “Positive” Antisemitism

Antisemitism has come to be regarded as purely motivated by antipathy to, disdain for, and hatred of Jews—culminating in a desire to eliminate them through murder. However, there appears to exist a form of antisemitism that sees in the Jews an important, often dangerous, element that is worth having on one’s side, for a number of reasons and purposes. This kind of “positive” antisemitism, just like the more obvious and well-known variety, vastly exaggerates Jewish influence and power. It accepts the usual antisemitic trope of a worldwide cabal of powerful Jews who aim to influence or control parts or even all of the non-Jewish world. But the conclusion is the opposite of the traditional one: It is a good idea to cultivate Jewish power and have it on one’s side. A good example is the background to the Balfour Declaration.

El Holocausto y las comparaciones con otros genocidios

The driving question underlying this work is whether the Holocaust had features that did not exist in any other form of genocide. When unprecedented elements in a social phenomenon are discussed, the first question that comes to mind is: Unprecedented compared to what? Taking a comparative stance and bearing in mind that the horror of the Holocaust consisted not in that it diverted from human standards, but that in fact it did not, this work reviews the genocide of Tutsis, Armenian, Khmer, Muslim Chams, Vietnamese, and Roma, to conclude that the Holocaust represents an extreme form of genocide. On the other hand, it is argued that differences must be analyzed in order to learn from what has happened. As a result of the acquired knowledge, the dialectical relationship between particularity and universality of horror is revealed. The Holocaust conveys a warning. We do not know if we will succeed in spreading what we have learned, but if there is even a single chance in a million, that sense must prevail; we have the moral obligation of trying, in the spirit of Kants ethical -moral- philosophy.

Moral and Political Aspects of Migration Challenges in Europe

Yehuda Bauer is Professor Emeritus of History and Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is Academic Adviser to Yad Vashem. He is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Rethinking the Holocaust and The Jews: A Contrary People. In 1998, Prof. Bauer was the recipient of the Israel Prize. This article is adapted from a lecture he gave at the Israel Council on Foreign Relations Israeli–European Young Diplomats Forum on November 17, 2015.

Internationalizing the Arab—Israeli Conflict

My credentials for writing about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are not especially impressive. My life experience has been unspectacular. Like most Israeli Jews of my age (I was born in 1926), I served in the War of Independence (in my case in the Palmach) and then in successive wars right up until Yom Kippur in 1973. I ended my “glorious” career defending Israel with the lowly rank of lieutenant. However, in my academic career, which focuses on the Holocaust, antisemitism, and genocide, as well as general and Jewish history, I have had the opportunity to work with many Israeli and foreign diplomats from a wide array of countries, especially during the last fifteen years. Our cooperation has mainly been in the field of Holocaust education, antisemitism, and genocide prevention.

Bohaterowie, hochsztaplerzy, opisywacze: wokół Żydowskiego Związku Wojskowego [Heroes, hucksters, storytellers: the Jewish Military Organization

Two historians – Dariusz Libionka, a Pole, and Laurence Weinbaum, a Polish-speaking Israeli – have written an extremely important study of the right-wing Zionist resistance group, the ŻZW (Żydowski...

Holocaust Rescue Revisited

In Volume VII:1 of this journal, Dr. Rafael Medoff, Prof. Alexander J. Groth, and Prof. Michael J. Cohen took issue with my scholarship regarding the feasibility of rescuing Jews during the Holocaust. The subject is of importance, because if what they, and especially Dr. Medoff, argue is correct, then the Jews of Europe, or at least many of them, really could have been rescued during World War II— and the “West,” especially the United States, bears most of the responsibility for failing to do so. The crux of their argument is that the Americans knew about the destruction of European Jewry, could have helped stop it, and chose not to do so. This also has far-reaching implications for Israel today.

The Holocaust, America, and American Jewry

Arguments about rescue attempts—or a lack thereof—by Jewish leadership groups and Jewish communities in the Holocaust period still arouse intense controversies. These are more often than not connected to present-day politics rather than politics of the past. However, there is a need to establish certain perspectives that will enable us to deal with these controversies in a somewhat more dispassionate fashion.