Children studying in a clandestine school in the Kovno ghetto, Lithuania. USHMM, courtesy of Eliezer Zilberis 
A priest and several nuns pose with a group of children at a Franciscan convent school in Lomna, Poland where Jewish children were hidden during the German occupation. USHMM, courtesy of Lidia Kleinman Siciarz 
German passport for Hilde Schindler with the given middle name of Sara and stamped with J for Jude (Jew) Courtesy of the Jewish Museum London
Jewish children at the children’s home in Izieu, France. Soon afterwards they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered. Copyright © Yad Vashem 
Identity cards like this one were issued to all children who came to Britain with the 'Kindertransport', the organised groups of Jewish refugees who escaped from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938-9 Courtesy of the Jewish Museum London
Oxford Journals, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Most Frequently Read Articles
Mapping Out the "Wasteland": Testimonies from the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees in the Service of Tudjman's Revisionism
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMTIn a 1989 monograph, Franjo Tudjman used reprints of witness statements by Serbian former inmates of Jasenovac concentration camp that depicted the Jewish prisoners in a negative light. A close examination of the original documents indicates that Tudjman used these highly problematic accounts of life in the camp uncritically. The descriptions of events contained in the statements do not always correspond to one another, and some are contradicted by other sources. The author of this article shows that a conflict emerged between some Jews and some Serbs in Jasenovac in March 1942, and suggests that this may explain in part why some of the Serbian refugees made negative remarks about "Jewish" behavior. Although Tudjman almost certainly was aware that the sources were problematic, he nevertheless used them—apparently, the author concludes, in an attempt to foster political support within segments of the Croatian nationalist diaspora in North America.
Read MoreThe Chameleon of Trawniki: Jack Reimer, Soviet Volksdeutsche, and the Holocaust
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMTThe crimes and transformations of Jack Reimer, a heavily-implicated ethnic German Holocaust perpetrator, are examined in the following article. Within little more than a generation, Reimer refashioned himself from repressed farmer to Red Army lieutenant; from Soviet POW in German captivity to senior non-commissioned officer at the SS Training Camp in Trawniki, Poland; and finally from wanted war criminal to upstanding American citizen. This article argues that for one ethnic German perpetrator, participation in the Holocaust served as a vehicle for negotiating Eastern Europe's dangerous wartime multiethnic milieu.
Read MoreNever Despair: Sixty Years in the Service of the Jewish People and the Cause of Human Rights, Gerhart M. Riegner (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2006), x + 459 pp., $35.00
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT(none)
Read MoreAn Epitaph for German Judaism: From Halle to Jerusalem, Emil Fackenheim (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007) xxxiv + 327 pp., $39.95.
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT(none)
Read MoreThe Unknown Black Book: The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories, Joshua Rubenstein and Ilya Altman, eds. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2008), xl + 446 pp., $34.95
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT(none)
Read MoreArguing about Cambodia: Genocide and Political Interest
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMTFrom the time the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975, people have argued over the actions and intentions of the communist regime in Cambodia. During the years following the revolution, scholars and journalists debated allegations that the Khmer Rouge was committing genocide. Even after communist Vietnam toppled the neighboring regime, debate remained fierce. Much of the positioning by academics, publicists, and politicians seems to have been motivated largely by political purposes.
Read MoreNegotiating Murder: A Panzer Signal Company and the Destruction of the Jews of Peregruznoe, 1942
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMTIn September 1942, members of a Panzer signal company murdered thirty to forty Jews near the tiny Soviet town of Peregruznoe. A case study of the unit reveals that individual soldiers faced a twisted terrain of choices, pressures, and organizational cultural norms. The author argues that the "perpetrators" among these Wehrmacht soldiers can be placed along a continuum of response: the commander led the activist core, followers went along, and individual soldiers evaded participation. Investigation of the complexities of participation and non-participation in spontaneous acts of violence such as this helps us to understand why some men (and units) killed while others did not.
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