Perpetrators Victims Bystanders

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Thought-provoking overview of the people of the Holocaust - Rated
Raoul Hilberg is perhaps best known for his huge, scholarly history of the murder of Europe's Jews by the Nazis and their slavic helpers. This book delves less deep, but is just as horrifying. Unlike many products of the "holocaust industry", Hilberg's book gives space to both the killers and their victims, stressing the banal murderousness of the former and the cruel self-delusion and bravery of the latter. Where this book really shocks its readers is in the section on the "bystanders": the individuals, organisations and nations - from German neighbours of the oppressed Jews to the US and Britain - who did absolutely nothing to help. THAT is something that we are rarely told: that the Allies couls have done much to save the Jews, and without necessarily slowing down the march to military victory over the "third reich".

This is therefore an extremely useful introduction to the topic; readers who have already read serious works on the subject might find it slightly "superficial", though it is not to be ignored for that.