52 pages • 1 hour read
Philip Paul HallieA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This section discusses antisemitism, racism, and the Holocaust.
The Holocaust was the intentional and brutal attempt by the Nazi government to enact genocide on the Jewish people of Europe and beyond. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis murdered more than six million Jews via mass shootings, gas chambers, and death due to disease and privation in the harsh conditions of concentration camps and ghettos. In addition to Jews, the Nazis targeted people whose political or religious beliefs conflicted with the regime’s racist worldview. Anyone in Germany or Eastern Europe who openly criticized the Nazi regime was among the first actively placed in concentration camps. Later, the Nazis actively targeted communists, Catholics, atheists, people with disabilities, gay men, Polish people, the Roma people, anyone who potentially had a mental illness, the unhoused, and Soviets as well. The exact number of people the Nazis targeted, tortured, and murdered is unknown because they practiced mass cremation and used mass graves. The Holocaust refers not only to the mass murder perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazis but also to the antisemitic propaganda and general dehumanization of the Jewish people in Germany and Eastern Europe in particular.
As Hallie makes clear in Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, the Nazis’ fascist authoritarianism was not unique in Europe at the time.
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Challenging Authority
View Collection
Community
View Collection
Fate
View Collection
Forgiveness
View Collection
French Literature
View Collection
Good & Evil
View Collection
Memorial Day Reads
View Collection
Military Reads
View Collection
Mortality & Death
View Collection
Order & Chaos
View Collection
Philosophy, Logic, & Ethics
View Collection
Power
View Collection
Religion & Spirituality
View Collection
Safety & Danger
View Collection
Truth & Lies
View Collection
War
View Collection
World War II
View Collection