Review: Holocaust by Angela Gluck

Review: Holocaust by Angela Gluck Wood For some who are living today, the memories of the Holocaust, life during the time of the Holocaust or the experiences which would reverberate from it even decades later are still fresh. The indelible scars which the atrocity branded onto the world are continuously perceptible in an artistic, literary and cultural tenacity which has persisted to remind the collective of its responsibility to pay honor to the victims of its worst conceits. But as more times stretches between the systematic murder of 6 million Jews as it transpired throughout Eastern Europe in concurrence with World War II and the first-hand cognizance of such horrors in present-day witnesses, it will become increasingly more difficult for historical observers to properly contextualize the precious testimonials which are currently available and the shocking statistical breadth of events directly there related. This is especially true when one considers the emotionally charged nature which historiography on the topic of this mass-genocide tends to take on. The culture which has formed around historical remembrance of the Holocaust is inextricably tied into the psyche of the Jewish people and indeed the perspective of the world on ethnic cleansing of any form. In these respects, the forms of its recollections, such as museums, educational programs and broad, sweeping text-books, are certainly practical to the function of education and enlightenment. However, in the construction of there is a singular challenge to balance objectivism with a fair account of the truly heinous extent of events occurring during the Holocaust. In its concise discussion points, its intensively dense collections of statistical information and its loyal reference to survivor testimonies, the text simply entitled Holocaust by Angela Gluck Wood has contributed a thorough and emotionally balanced perspective on the events of isolation, encampment and genocide that were obsessively pursued by the Nazis. The text is largely centered on the history of the Jews, framing the pivotal event in the history of the people as being the Holocaust. By orienting the text through a carefully conceived introduction remarking on the sequence of inequities visited upon the Jewish people throughout their history and proceeding to examine in ambitious breadth the implications to the Jewish people of the Holocaust, Wood essentially tells the story of the selected group according to the persistence of anti-Semitism. This approach manifests in a tragic discussion on the vagaries of human nature, bringing an unusual life and humanism to a history hardback. Its collages of text and image, artifact and document are selected with an attention to this sentiment without ever cloying or descending into condescending depiction of the victimized group. This is assisted by an intriguing and nonetheless damning portrait of the Germans. We see the nature of the political and cultural pressure levied upon the economically embattled Germans. Of these, Wood tells that "at first there was little support for the Nazis in Germany, but they learned the powerful appeal of uniforms, symbols, rallies, and salutes from the experience of Italian fascists. Nazi theories of race also helped to make ordinary Germans feel superior and strengthened popular support." (Wood, 34) Such blurbs are accompanied by visually compelling spreads which incorporate the broad and stunning array of images, illustrations, artifacts and propaganda sheets. Here are accompanying facts and photographs depicting Germans, especially young children, held in a collective thrall while extending the one-armed Hitler Salute. Such accompanying images drive home the disturbing human elements of the Holocaust, with its perpetrators shown in frankness to be regular Germans. On this same page, an advertisement featuring an attractive young Aryan girl asks for donations to the Hitler youth, contending under its surface the racial superiority posited by the Third Reich. At an early juncture in the text, the author provides a useful point of consideration which does set it apart from many other works on the subject. Rather than to simply appeal to the reader's sense of pity, Wood takes on the task of demanding admiration of the Jewish people quite simply for their persistence to survive as a culture and with an intact sense of identity, even if that identity is inextricably now linked to the events of the Holocaust. As the text reports on another page distinguished by compelling photographs to the case of Jewish determination, "despite the high walls of the ghettos and the military strength of the Nazis, many people in the ghettos escapes or fought in their hearts and minds. For most, resistance took the form of clinging to the love of family and friends, holding on to traditions, and strengthening their hope." (Wood, 66) Reviews of the text are uniformly positive, particularly pointed to the healthy balance of objectivity and sensitivity found in the writing and layout. In particular, the arrangement of real-life testimony, statistics and traditional text-book multimedia layouts would together produce a text regarded by critics as thorough and compelling. The review offered by Publisher's Weekly on the text is a straightforward explanation of the contents of the text. Most effusively praised by the review is the appeal to first-person accounts of experience in ghettos and concentration camps. The review notes that "each chapter includes a two-page spread entitled Voices, devoted largely to excerpts from 23 interviews in the Foundation's video archives." (PW, 1) This is a uniformly powerful way, the review suggests, of demonstrating the individual scope of tragedy within an academic context that also takes account for the enormity of suffering which the Nazis spread across Europe. According to the review, there is also a positive perspective offered on the perseverance of the Jews which matches the testimony noted above concerning the retention of identity. Publisher's Weekly states of the author that "she clearly wants to reclaim the individuality and humanity of those devastated by this enormity (In many ways, numbers, especially very large numbers, mean nothing to us. What matters is each and every human being who was murdered by the Nazis) and she never resorts to lecturing readers on how they should feel." (PW, 1) Again, the core objectivism of the work is part of its value in a discourse which has witnessed (positively speaking) a wealth of contributors and perspectives. The critique offers only the drawback that "the book's detailed charts and maps contain almost too much information at times, often demanding very close scrutiny to fully decipher." (PW, 1) However, the position taken in this discussion is driven by the utterly human determinants of its value. Testimonies are devastating and images are inarguable. Thus, when finally the author arrives at a discussion on the remarkable upswing in Holocaust denial across recent decades, it is already the case that she has built a completing damning case against the Germans and all of humanity for allowing the events of the Holocaust. It is moving to read Wood's discussion on the moment at which the world became fully aware of the behaviors committed by the Germans. Here, the text tells that "the soldiers in the liberating armies, whether Soviet, British, or American, were deeply shocked by what they found in the death camps and the horror has stayed with them." (Wood, 148) Indeed, this horror stays with the reader of Wood's text as well, denoting that she has effectively delivered in appropriate detail the realities and implications of the Holocaust. Publisher's Weekly (PW). (2007). Review: "Holocaust." Amazon.com.