History

The Lion and the Star not only offers an informed glimpse into the intricacies of daily German life but also confirms the continuing danger of making sweeping generalizations about German Jews and non-Jews. In the aftermath of World War II, many viewed the Third Reich as an aberration in German history and laid blame with Hitler and his followers. Since the 1960s, historians have widened their focus, implicating "ordinary" Germans in the demise of German Jewry.

Jonathan Friedman addresses this issue by investigation everyday relations between German Jews and their Gentile neighbors. Friedman examines three German communities of different sizes -- Frankfurt am Main, Giessen, and Geisenheim. Symbolized by the Hessian heraldic lion, these communities represent a cross-section of both Gentile and Jewish society in Germany during the Weimar and Nazi years. Researching in the United States, Germany, England, and Israel, he gleaned information from interviews, memoirs, diaries, letters, newspapers, church and synagogue records, censuses, government documents, and reports from Nazi and resistance organizations. Friedman's comparative analysis offers a balanced response to recent scholarly works condemning the entire German people for their complicity in the Holocaust.

estimonies from the survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation form the basis of this study of memory and trauma in relation to women's experiences and sexual behavior during Hitler's reign of terror. The three essays in this manuscript explore survivor testimony for memories of sexual politics and the functioning of the Nazi state, sexual abuse that often cut across gender lines, and sexual behavior in the different contexts of persecution_ghettos, camps, and hiding.

Rainbow Jews deals with the intersection of gay and Jewish identity in American and Israeli film and theater, from the 1960s to the present. Its main area of interest is the extent to which Jewish creative voices in the performing arts have constructed multidimensional images of, and a welcoming public space for, the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community as a whole. Through a close reading of the texts of numerous American and Israeli plays and films (some famous, but mostly lesser known), the author evaluates some of the key conventions and tropes that have been employed to construct, critique, and reflect the social reality of the connection between Jewishness and gay identity in the United States and Israel. Secondarily, the author explores ways in which gay-Jewish playwrights and filmmakers have assisted the re-evaluation of sexual norms within Judaism over the past three decades, inspiring and reinforcing measures across the spectrum of belief geared towards integrating Jewish members of the GLBT community into the overall Jewish historical narrative.

The genocide of Jewish and non-Jewish civilians perpetrated by the German regime during World War Two continues to confront scholars with elusive questions even after nearly seventy years and hundreds of studies. This multi-contributory work is a landmark publication that sees experts renowned in their field addressing these questions in light of current research.

A comprehensive introduction to the history of the Holocaust, this volume has 42 chapters which add important depth to the academic study of the Holocaust, both geographically and topically. The chapters address such diverse issues as:

    continuities in German and European history with respect to genocide prior to 1939

    the eugenic roots of Nazi anti-Semitism

    the response of Europe's Jewish Communities to persecution and destruction

    the Final Solution as the German occupation instituted it across Europe

    rescue and rescuer motivations the problem of prosecuting war crimes

    gender and Holocaust experience

    the persecution of non-Jewish victims

    the Holocaust in postwar cultural venues.

This important collection will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of the Holocaust.

The major objective of this collection of 28 essays is to analyze the trends, musical formats, and rhetorical devices used in popular music to illuminate the human condition. By comparing and contrasting musical offerings in a number of countries and in different contexts from the 19th century until today, The Routledge History of Social Protest in Popular Music aims to be a probing introduction to the history of social protest music, ideal for popular music studies and history and sociology of music courses.