''The War Against the Jews'' is a 1975 book by

Lucy Dawidowicz Lucy Dawidowicz ( Schildkret; June 16, 1915 – December 5, 1990) was an American historian and writer. She wrote books about modern Jewish history, in particular, she wrote books about the Holocaust. Life Dawidowicz was born in New York City a ...

. The book researches

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

of the European Jewry during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The author contends that

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

pursued his policies to eliminate Jewish populations throughout Europe even to the detriment of pragmatic wartime actions such as moving troops and securing supply lines. As an example, Dawidowicz notes that Hitler delayed railcars providing supplies to front line troops in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

so that Jews could be deported by rail from the USSR to

death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

s. She uses records of "one-way" rail tickets as additional documentation of those sent to camps. Dawidowicz also draws a line of "anti-Semitic descent" from

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...

to Hitler, writing that both men were obsessed by the "demonologized universe" inhabited by Jews. She contends that similarities between Luther's anti-Jewish writings, especially ''

On the Jews and Their Lies ''On the Jews and Their Lies'' (german: Von den Jüden und iren Lügen; in modern spelling ) is a 65,000-word anti-Judaic and antisemitic treatise written in 1543 by the German Reformation leader Martin Luther (1483–1546). Luther's attitude t ...

'', and modern anti-Semitism are no coincidence, because they derived from a common history of '' Judenhass'' (Jew-hatred), which she traces back to the biblical Haman's advice to Ahasuerus. She argues that though modern anti-Semitism has its roots in

German nationalism German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one na ...

, the foundation of

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

anti-Semitism was laid by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and "upon which Luther built." The book also provides detailed listings by country of the number of Jews killed in

. Dawidowicz researched birth and death records in many cities of prewar Europe to come up with a death toll of 5,933,900 Jews.

Criticism by Raul Hilberg

Raul Hilberg, widely considered to be one of the world's preeminent Holocaust scholars, published his three-volume, 1,273-page '' magnum opus'', ''

The Destruction of the European Jews ''The Destruction of the European Jews'' is a 1961 book by historian Raul Hilberg. Hilberg revised his work in 1985, and it appeared in a new three-volume edition. It is largely held to be the first comprehensive historical study of the Holocau ...

'', in 1961; this work is regarded today as a seminal study of the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

Final Solution. Hilberg notes that Dawidowicz not only ignored ''The Destructions findings in ''The War Against the Jews'', but also went on to exclude mention of him in her

historiographic Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

work, ''The Holocaust and the Historians'', published in 1981. Hilberg's work, running as it did against the grain of

intentionalist Original intent is a theory in law concerning constitutional and statutory interpretation. It is frequently used as a synonym for originalism; while original intent is indeed one theory in the originalist family, it has some salient differe ...

thinking, was widely unpopular among many early scholars, a contrast to later views. It is argued that Davidowicz, a renowned ''intentionalist'', simply ignored Hilberg's work in order to follow an academically safer path, avoiding controversy by avoiding ''functionalist'' conclusions like those drawn by Hilberg. "She wanted preeminence," Hilberg writes.

Jewish population listing

Notes

External links

*
The War against the Jews
' at Archive.org {{DEFAULTSORT:War Against the Jews, The 1975 non-fiction books History books about the Holocaust Holt, Rinehart and Winston books

Criticism by Raul Hilberg

Jewish population listing

See also

Notes

External links