Anti-Semitism and the “Final Solution”: The Holocaust Overview

Byers, Ann. Anti-Semitism and the “Final Solution”: The Holocaust Overview. 2015. 96p. ISBN 978-0-7660-6192-7. Available at 940.53 BYE on the library shelves.

The Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. It was a deliberate policy set forth by Adolf Hitler to destroy the Jews of Europe more than twenty years before the death camps were established. This book documents the four distinct phases of the persecution of Jews, from fiery rhetorical speeches made in the early 1920s blaming the Jews for Germany’s defeat to the “Final Solution” and the creation of a huge, efficient, and remorseless killing machine.

The end of the First World War caused a major shock to the German population, which had been told all along they were winning the war. The country as a whole could not accept defeat and began plotting its revenge. A bogeyman was needed, and the Jews, which had been blamed throughout history for many of the world’s ills, once again became scapegoats.

As Hitler and his Nazi party gained traction with Germans, the intensity of the hate increased, forcing many Jews out of Germany to escape persecution and death. But war caught up with them, and as Germany conquered country after country in Europe it regained its Jewish population. The road was thus paved for implementing the “Final Solution.”

A great overview of the Holocaust and its causes, this book belongs on every library shelves to ensure that we never forget this tragedy.

The actuality of the Holocaust remains, and the information contained in this book makes a great companion to Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World’s Most Notorious Nazi and An Illustrated History of the Gestapo.

Other books in this series include Anti-Semitism and the "Final Solution." and Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna: The Holocaust Ghettos.