referencebooks (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} referencebooks) wrote,@ 2006-04-04 18:38:00 |
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| Entry tags: | ethnic studies, history |
Dictionary of the Holocaust
Dictionary of the Holocaust: Biography, Geography, and Terminology
By Eric Joseph Epstein and Philip Rosen
Published by Greenwood Press, 1997.
This is a 6.5" by 9.5" hardbound book running to 416 pages including the bibliography and index, plus a foreword, introduction, and acknowledgments.
There is a thorough, multivolume encyclopedia of the Holocaust; this book is much less ambitious, aiming only to provide brief dictionary entries about numerous people, places, and terminology relating to the Holocaust.
The word "Holocaust" is kind of like the word "Semite," in that it has an older, general meaning and a more Jewish-specific meaning. An anti-semite is understood to be someone who hates Jews, not someone who hates the broad ethnic or linguistic group that includes Jews and Arabs. Similarly, though to a much lesser extent, the word "Holocaust" usually refers to the German genocide against the European Jewish population during World War II. The numerical loss was devastating in terms of the number killed in comparison to the total world Jewish population, and this is perhaps the major reason that it is viewed as a Jewish tragedy moreso than a tragedy for Communists or Gypsies or Homosexuals, who were also put in concentration camps and killed en masse. It was also, of course, not the only genocide in history or even in the 20th Century, but has the distinction of being the most systematic and modern, justifying those who claim it is uniquely horrific in history. Nevertheless, for a reference book on the 20th Century European Holocaust, this one is, as usual, disappointingly focused on the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective, relatively ignoring the tragedy as it was experienced by other groups.
Aside from that major flaw, this is a well-done, informative book that includes much useful information, very little of it general knowledge. For an example, here are the first fifteen entries in the "M" sequence:
- Ma'apilim
- Maccabi
- Macedonia
- Mach, Sano
- Machtergreifung
- Madagascar Deportation Plan
- Magyar Zhid
- Majdanek
- Maly Trostinets
- Mandel, Maria
- Mann, Thomas
- Manstein, Field Marshal Erich von
- Mantello, George Mandel
- Maquis/Maquisards
- Marmalade
These fifteen entries cover three pages and range in length from two lines to about a half a page. Within each entry, cross-referenced terms are in bold. The prose is concise and factual. For most entries there is one reference given to an item for further reading.
A very useful book for information on people, places, and terminology relating to the Jewish side of the 20th Century European Holocaust.
