The Holocaust: Could the Allies Have Done More?

Annotated Bibliography The Holocaust: Could the Allies have done more? Jennifer Pagliaro

Lewin, Abraham. A Cup of Tears: A Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto. Great Britain: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1988

This document is an uncontested source of evidence from a victim of the Holocaust. Abraham Lewin was a prisoner of the Nazis, kept within the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland. This diary tells the story of his everyday life and of those around him living in the ghetto. Abraham Lewin was a teacher at a Jewish secondary school in Warsaw. He was 47 years old when the Warsaw Ghetto was established in 1940. He is thought to have died in Treblinka in 1943, but his words still are a living testimony of the live of those that lived in the ghetto. This document articulates the suffering that was had by the victims of the Holocaust. It offers a look at the victims who just waited for rescue and never received it. It is helpful to my argument because it provokes an empathetic viewpoint towards Holocaust victims which sometimes skews the opinions of many people who debate whether or not more victims could have been saved.

Marrus, Michael R. The Holocaust in History. Markham: Penguin Books, 1989.

This book analyzes the occurrence of the Holocaust and what led to its cause by examining the victims, participants and bystanders of the ordeal. The author attempts to view the entire situation from start to finish in a factual manor. Most popular events and situations are recorded in this book, like Auschwitz and Warsaw and Kristallnacht. The book takes a historical viewpoint on the basics of the Holocaust. Michael R. Marrus is a professor of history at the University of Toronto and has written several other books on Jewish History. He allows history to speak for itself in terms of discussing whether or not more could have been done to help Holocaust victims. A critical and unbiased look at the topic of ‘rescue’ during the Holocaust is contained in this book. It allows the reader to take a critical look on whether or not more could have been done and decide for oneself.

Rubenstein, William D. The Myth of Rescue. New York: Routledge, 1997

Rubenstein takes the unpopular approach to the debate on the Holocaust. Arguing that the democracies could not have saved more Jews from the Nazis Rubenstein attempts to ‘de-myth’ the idea of rescue. Rubenstein is a professor of history who has studied and written on modern Jewish history, including his previous book A History of the Jews in the English-speaking World. This book takes a look at whether or not more could have been done for the Jews and uses precise, noted evidence to prove Rubenstein’s side of the argument. The book looks objectively at whether or not it really could have been possible to save more Jews. Rubenstein’s documented evidence leads to the conclusion that the Jews in fact could not have been ‘rescued’ from the Nazis. This book adds greatly to evidence that explicitly explains the reasons more Jews could not have been rescued.

Rossel, Seymour. The Holocaust. United States of America: Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data, 1989

This book discusses the history of the Holocaust from Hitler’s rise to power to his systematic annihilation of the Jews. It tells a non-fictional, chronological story of what happened to the Jews, through facts, figures and primary evidence. Seymour Rossel studied history at Southern Methodist University. His opinion clearly sides with the Jews, and justifiably so, but he still promotes facts about the Holocaust, not just his own personal opinion. Another viewpoint on the Holocaust is offered through this book. It looks at what it means to be human and rising to the cause of rescue. It is a good source to help analyze why some people did or didn’t help the Jews during the Holocaust.

Witherbee, Amy. Holocaust. Great Neck Publishing, 2005

As the title indicates, this book details a history of the Holocaust during World War 2. The history is divided into separate chapters such as “Hitler’s Nazis”, “Concentration Camps and Mass Murder” and “Genocide” to further break down the large topic and argument in this book. Amy Witherbee assesses the topic of the Holocaust well, but all of her sources are not clearly footnoted which makes her work hard to determine reliable or not. Her work in this way seems mostly opinionated instead of factual, but still presents some very good points. This book is beneficial to my research because it provides another opinion on the direct topic of whether or not the Allies could have done more and what they did or didn’t do. It provides a gray area between fact and opinion which gives me a perspective on the topic.

Arthur, Krystal. "My Holocaust Problem." American Scholar 75.1 (2006): 37-48.

This journal is written about remembering and preserving the idea of the Holocaust and those who suffered as a cause of it. Not just the survivors or victims of the Holocaust, but all the children and grandchildren of those men and women are subject to reencounter the horrors of the Holocaust over and over. The author makes several statements against the media and government desensitizing the idea of the Holocaust with elaborate ceremonies and the use of language pertaining to the Holocaust. The source is a credible academic journal and the author’s statements reliable. The author does have a bias because several of his family members were directly involved with the Holocaust and naturally he would have very strong opinions about certain issues and events in that area. The author keeps his outlook objective however to better prove his point to the average reader. This article was helpful to me because it looked at the personal opinion of Holocaust survivors and their families as well as how the general public views the Holocaust. Many people are torn on whether or not more people could have been saved in the Holocaust and this article gives an interesting perspective on how people view the situation as a whole.

Fogelman, Eva, and Valerie Lewis Wiener. "The Few, the Brave, the Noble." Pyschology Today (1985)

This journal centres on individuals in Europe who took it upon themselves to harbour Jewish fugitives during the Holocaust. The article tells the stories of these ‘heroes’, a title they humbly refuse to accept, and the people they saved. The authors published this article in an acclaimed scholarly journal. Although the article is dated it still provides timeless, valid information from the rescuers and those saved from Nazi Germany. The article gives evidence that there were people who truly did want and actively participated in rescuing the Jews from the Holocaust. This information can be used to understand why it was easy for some to be ‘heroes’ and why others simply sat back and watched the Holocaust happen.

Sharples, Caroline. "Kindertransport". History Today 54.3 (2004): 23-30.

The author discusses in this article the history and aftermath of the children who were allowed to leave the Nazi regime on a train to Britain. The transport, known as the Kindertransport, transported an undocumented number of children under the age of 17 from Harwich, Berlin and Vienna to Britain. The author relays information from those who remember the journey and how the shift to a new life affected the children. The source is a credible scholarly journal and the author presents a factual interpretation of the journey the children took in 1938. The article uses primary sources, interviewing those who actually were on the train as children and can give a first hand account of the experience. This article is extremely useful in my research because it gives me a specific example of how Jews were attempted to be saved from the Nazis and that rescue in some forms was attempted and in this case very successful. Untied States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2006. 20 Sep. 2006 .

This website is the online version of the Memorial Museum for the Holocaust in Washington, D.C. The website includes historical information on the Holocaust, a Holocaust Encyclopaedia and access to some of the exhibits that are at the museum in the United States. This website is credible because it is the official website of the museum which is a prominent source of information and reflection on the Holocaust. Many forms of evidence and sources have been compiled onto the website to form a large database of information. This source is very helpful because it has first hand accounts, personal stories, historically accurate information and it is completely unbiased. As a museum website it provides a purely educational approach to the Holocaust free of opinion.