Hilberg’s Destruction of the European Jews and Dawidowicz’s the War Against the Jews Compare & Contrast Essay

Introduction

After the end of the Second World War, many authors wrote on the events that took place during the war period with some writing from personal experiences and others from studies on the subject.

The Holocaust, which took place during the war, has attracted much attention from scholars, especially historians, most of whom work to justify why the event happened, its actualization, and the aftermath.

The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg and The war Against the Jews by Lucy Dawidowicz are two such texts that focus on the Holocaust. This paper is an analysis of the two texts and it presents similarities and differences in the prevalent themes.

Similarities

The most outstanding similarity between The Destruction of the European Jews by Hilberg and The War against the Jews by Dawidowicz is their subject of discussion.

Both books give accounts of what happened during the Holocaust in Europe during the Second World War, albeit from different perspectives.

Hilberg’s account comprises some of the major institutions that orchestrated the event and how the institutions planned and executed the murder, which resulted in the death of millions of Jews throughout Europe.

Similarly, Dawidowicz’s account of events during the period explains aspects in the German leadership at the time that led to the annihilation of millions of Jews all over Europe.

Secondly, although the accounts in the books differ significantly, both focus on the same event, viz. the Holocaust.

Hilberg discusses the Holocaust from a perspective that focuses on the possible causes of the event and progression of occurrences that culminated in the annihilation of millions of Jews in Europe, with Germany as the epicenter.

He explains that the Holocaust was a partial result of the passive nature with which the Jews in Germany treated German acts of oppression in the years preceding the execution of the ‘final solution’ (Hilberg 1985, 65).

Dawidowicz explores the Holocaust as an atrocious event that greatly affected the Jewish community in Europe.

She also vulcanizes Hitler for the atrocities, stating that the event was a grand scheme Hitler had planned several years before the German administration executed it (Dawidowicz 1986, 42). In her view, the turn of events caught the Jews unaware, justifying the high death count.

Thirdly, both accounts bear evidence of extensive research on the topic by both authors through evidence they present in support of their perspectives.

Both authors passively observed as the holocaust unfolded during their lifetime and thus lacked substantive information to narrate in their accounts. As a result, they compensate using extensive research on the topic from years of study.

For instance, Dawidowicz includes data from an analysis of ‘one-way’ passes from train stations during the Holocaust in support of her theory that Hitler’s hatred of Jews went to irrational extents (Dawidowicz 1986, 107).

On his side, Hilberg uses data from his studies on German documents in presenting his conclusions about the involvement of the German bureaucracy in the destruction process.

He expressly states the same at the beginning of his book, further indicating that his account is not about the Jews (Hilberg 1985, 6).

The last and perhaps most interesting similarity is that both authors had a background in Judaism, which affects their opinions with regard to the subject at hand and the resultant contents of the books.

Evidence of influence from their Jewish backgrounds is present in the difference with which both Hilberg and Dawidowicz narrate the involvement of the Jews in the holocaust.

Hilberg regards the community’s passive nature in dealing with conflict as part of the reason why the Jews were vulnerable to attacks during the destruction process (Hilberg 1985, 66) while Dawidowicz places all the blame on Hitler and his administration (Dawidowicz 1986, 42).

Dawidowicz grew up in Jewish households for the most part of her life. She married a Jew after leaving her parents’ Jewish home and working with a Jewish organization in Poland before and after the Holocaust period (Davis 1994, 29).

This aspect explains her activist stand against the atrocities that befell the Jews in Europe during the Second World War.

Although Hilberg’s parents practiced some Jewish traditions such as occasional visits to the synagogue, Hilberg never had a personal interest in religion as he found it irrational.

Hilberg’s family fled Europe in 1939, just a few years before the occurrence of the holocaust (Popper 2010, 47), which explains why he thinks the Jews should have been more aggressive in their protests against persecution before the holocaust.

However, the accounts present more differences than similarities regarding an analysis of facts about the event by the two authors.

Differences

The first major difference that the two accounts present concerns the perspectives of the authors on the holocaust. Hilberg writes his book from a German perspective, which has resulted in controversial debates over the years.

At the beginning of the book, Hilberg expressly states that his account of events does not include the Jews as most of his research on the topic hinges on documentation from German authorities discovered after the conclusion of the Second World War (Hilberg 1986, 3).

Throughout the book, the author describes events according to his opinion of how German authorities and the German community in general rationalized their actions and reactions towards the Jews after the First World War, which led to the holocaust.

For instance, he explains that the German bureaucracy found it increasingly easy to suppress the Jews and take advantage of the Jewish population as a source of cheap labor after implementation of policies that deprived Jews of property ownership rights (58).

He explains further that part of the reason for the progression of the oppression that led to the annihilation of a large percentage of the Jewish population in Europe was the passive response of the Jewish community and its leadership towards unfair policies that aggressively targeted them in a negative way (65).

Hilberg presents the opinion that had the Jewish Councils opposed oppressive laws, which stripped them of property and job ownership, the Jewish community would not have experienced “vulnerability in the hands of German bureaucracy” (72).

Some scholars argue that the choice for Jewish leadership to remain passive was in itself a form of protest against the German bureaucratic leadership.

They explain that by refusing to act in the same way that the German community acted towards the Jewish community, the Jews protested against the draconian leadership while setting the appropriate example.

The logic behind this explanation is that one cannot fight against war by engaging in actions that propagate the same vice.

However, Hilberg (1985) rejects such theory and explains that although passive rejection of bureaucratic ideologies prevented war, it also escalated and fast-tracked plans against the Jewish population (78).

In this sense, Hilberg (1985) suggests the appropriation of a certain portion of blame on the inefficiency of Jewish leadership in defending its people, which “both saved and destroyed its people” (216).

In essence, Hilberg apportions blame for the occurrence of the Holocaust to German bureaucracy as well as Jewish leaders.

On the other hand, Dawidowicz (1986) looks at the event from a Jewish perspective. Her account presents the opinion that the persecution of the Jews was a formulation of German leadership that had been in gear since the conclusion of the First World War in 1919 (42).

According to her account, the Jews had no way of knowing the occurrences that were about to befall them as the events of the Holocaust lacked any legal justification. Therefore, blaming the Jews for atrocities that they had no hand in planning is unreasonable in a sense (70).

Her account presents the lack of representation of the Jewish community’s concerns in the German legislature as the apex of the problem by citing lack of ministries to cater for affairs of Jews as an example.

She explains that barring Jews from involvement in all public affairs, including economic activities, created an aspect of secrecy that resulted in an unfair advantage for the Germans with regard to defensive response during the Holocaust (Dawidowicz 1986, 65).

Dawidowicz also presents an interesting perspective regarding the orchestrators of the event. Her account presents the opinion that Hitler was the root cause of the series of acts of persecutions leading to the holocaust.

Her account of events presents the view that the Holocaust was the culmination of a plot intended for the extinction of the entire Jewish race from Europe by Hitler, with the aid of the German government (105).

Although the book presents little evidence of her claim, she blames the misplacement and destruction of documents during the progression of the Second World War for lack of proper factual evidence to support her premise.

The second significant difference between the texts is that both accounts show a difference in the point of focus concerning the cause of the Holocaust.

While Dawidowicz’s book presents Adolf Hitler as the sole author of the entire plan, Hilberg directs his focus on government institutions that formed the German Bureaucracy at the time.

Hilberg (1985) explains that the ‘final solution’ was a “step-by-step” process that led to the “annihilation of 5 million victims” (46).

The first stage involved passing policies that made it illegal for Jews to own property or work in the public sector. For the success of such a step, civil service agencies, together with law enforcement and other relevant agencies had to work in tandem.

The book bears the explanation that the German bureaucracy took the communist ideology of the Jews and used it against them as justification for denial of rights to own property (Feldman and Seibel 2006, 68).

The German administration considered communism as a defeatist ideology with regard to economic development, particularly concerning property ownership (Hilberg 1986, 80).

The German government favored capitalism instead by propagating it as an ideology that would cater for the proprietary benefits of every individual within the nation’s territorial borders.

The negative perception that the German government had regarding communism was one of the main reasons it fought against the Soviet Union, as it thought of the idea as pro-colonization move.

The resultant effect of the restrictive proprietary policies against the Jews was an increased vulnerability of the Jewish community (Feldman and Seibel 2006, 75).

The policies made it impossible for Jews to earn a substantial income through trade and acquisition of capital goods, and thus a vast majority of the Jewish population was available to the German government as cheap labor.

Other countries across Europe implemented similar policies in order to obtain the same benefits. Such actions led to the treatment of Jews as sub-human entities across the European states (Hilberg 1985, 189; Feldman and Seibel 2006, 82).

The passive reaction of the Jews towards this form of persecution encouraged the establishment of the second stage, which involved segregation of Jews in Ghettoes.

Although the bureaucracy justified it as a form of protective measure for the Jews from acts of persecution by the German population, it made Jews easy targets and made it easy for the achievement of the last stage, viz. the annihilation.

Hilberg (1985) points out that those at the insiders of the bureaucracy were aware of the plan, but he makes note that knowing about the plan and hatching it are two separate concepts (192).

This opinion diverts attention to German governance, instead of the traditional attention on Adolf Hitler for his bold support for the idea of destruction of the Jewish race as a ‘final solution’.

The idea obtains more plausibility, especially in view of Hilberg’s application of documentation in existence at the time.

Dawidowicz’s idea on the topic presents Hitler as the sole mastermind of the destruction process. She explains that Hitler used his influence in the government to launch an anti-Semite campaign in the guise of anti-socialism.

Her account of events includes a link between Martin Luther and Hitler originating from the early Christian church. She insists, “Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic writings and Hitler’s ideologies bear too much significance to be mere coincidence” (Dawidowicz 1986, 96).

She adds that Hitler’s crusade against Jews had been brewing since the end of the First World War and that the Second World War provided the perfect opportunity to execute his ‘final solution’ (98).

Although some truth exists in her explanations, Dawidowicz’s focus leans more on the religious aspect of Judaism than the political aspect, which applies more appropriately to the subject matter.

Although communism forms one of the core principles of Judaism, focusing on the concept as a religious concern derails her argument of the topic on political grounds.

The third major difference between the two texts involves the nature of the content. Dawidowicz’s book is mainly analytical of occurrences at the time of the Holocaust, while Hilberg’s account is mainly descriptive, albeit extensive.

Although Dawidowicz used previous research by other writers to gather information on the subject, most of the content in her book indicates an analysis of the information.

One of the possible reasons for this outcome is because, unlike Hilberg, Dawidowicz applies personal experiences from her childhood, coupled with experiences during the Holocaust and after the event.

Dawidowicz was born of Jewish parents in the United States and raised in Jewish traditions, even though her parents were secular Jews, and thus they cared little about its religious implications.

The occurrence of persecution of Jews occurred while she was pursuing her education, hence sparking her interest on the matter.

Although she was aware of the persecution of Jews, it was not until her trip back to Poland after the Holocaust as an aid worker in 1946 that she experienced the full extent of the atrocities that had occurred.

Some of the friends she had made during her previous stay in Poland had also lost their lives during the holocaust. She undertook extensive research regarding the reasons and effects of events during the period, which resulted in the book (Davis 1994, 30).

These facts play an integral part in shaping her opinion, as evident in the book. Her account bears a sense of activism that is absent in Hilberg’s version of events.

For instance, Dawidowicz (1986) contends that had the Palestine policy to make Israel a free state passed as a law; the Holocaust would not have occurred (79). Her insistence on blaming Hitler for the entire event also presents a personal view on the issue, which is devoid of statistics.

Her approach essentially involves the use of data as support for her criticism of Hitler and the entire German government’s activities as well as those of the European governments in general.

For instance, she considers Hitler’s hatred for Jews “irrational” by citing his prioritization of transportation of Jews to ‘death camps’ over supply of food to solders at the front line during the war as one example (Dawidowicz 1986, 85).

She notes that the death toll for the Jews after the Holocaust stood at 5,993,900.

Hilberg’s book presents a different front to that of Dawidowicz. Hilberg’s work represents a recollection of events occurring before, during, and shortly after the Holocaust as documented by German officials at the time.

As a result, Hilberg’s account appears more descriptive than analytical, in comparison to Dawidowicz’s version.

Apart from his controversial analysis of actions by the Jewish Councils through which he concludes they bore a portion of the blame for the event, his account is mainly a comprehensive compilation of occurrences from the documentation that existed at the time he wrote the book.

Part of the reason for Hilberg’s insistence of partial blame on the Jewish community is his life experience. Although his parents attended the Synagogue several times, Hilberg found religion irrational and allocated no interest to it.

Additionally, his family fled from Europe to Cuba and later to the US during the holocaust, which might explain his view of Jews as passive in dealing with the issues arising at the time of the holocaust.

The view is one that has born his book controversy from various scholars (Nathaniel 2010). Hilberg began his research on the subject in 1948, a few years after the execution of the holocaust, which suggests that most of his research is mainly from documented evidence rather than experience.

Hilberg’s estimation of the number of Jews that died during the Holocaust is 5.1million. Some researchers argue that such estimation lacks accuracy and thus creation of a margin of error alters the figure.

However, it is noteworthy that during the period within which Hilberg wrote his first edition, few records existed as evidence of the figures.

Dawidowicz had the advantage of writing her book later on at a period during which more information and documentation on the event were available for use. Thus, Hilberg’s figures bear an element of accuracy according to the period of publication.

Conclusion

Although both texts account for the same event, viz. the Holocaust, significant differences arise in terms of the authors’ perspectives on the occurrences during the period.

The differences hinge on the elements on which they choose to focus coupled with their period of publication and application of personal experiences. Overall, both texts bear extensive details and are thoroughly informative and objective.

Reference List

Davis, Barry. 1994. “Lucy S. Dawidowicz (1915-1990).” Jewish Quarterly 41, no. 1 (May): 27-31.

Dawidowicz, Lucy. 1985. The War against the Jews: 1933-1945. New Jersey: Holmes & Meier Publishers.

Feldman, Gerald, and Wolfgang Seibel. 2006. Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, business and the organization of the Holocaust. New York: Berghahn Books.

Hilberg, Raul. 1986. The Destruction of the European Jews. New York: Bantam Books.

Popper, Nathaniel. 2010. “A Conscious Pariah: On Raul Hilberg.” The Nation Magazine, April 19.