Post-Holocaust: Interpretation, Misinterpretation, and the Claims of History

"These essays are extremely well written, with the clarity and
accessibility that one has come to expect from Berel Lang, one of the most respected
and significant philosophers writing about the Holocaust and its impact." --
Michael L. Morgan

In these trenchant essays, philosopher Berel
Lang examines post-Holocaust intepretations -- and misinterpretations -- showing the
ways in which rhetoric and ideology have affected historical discourse about the
Holocaust and how these accounts can be deconstructed. Why didn't the Jews resist?
How could the Germans have done what they did? Why didn't more bystanders join in
the rescue? In Lang's view, these questions become mischievous when the
circumstances in which victims, perpetrators, and bystanders played their roles are
omitted or obscured. To confront such issues adequately requires comparative and
contextual evidence. Post-Holocaust addresses such questions as the place of the
Holocaust in the Nazi project as a whole, the roles of revenge and forgiveness in
post-Holocaust Jewish thinking, Holocaust commemoration as artifice or
"business," and the relationship of the Holocaust to traditional
antisemitism. Lang's analysis provides an incisive and fruitful basis for
confronting these critical subjects.

Jewish Literature and Culture
-- Alvin H. Rosenfeld, editor