Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Studies in Jewish History)
by Marion A. Kaplan
List Price:
Our Price: $11.35
You Save: $8.64 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.80 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Marion A. KaplanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-06-10
ISBN: 0195130928
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Studies in Jewish History)
Book Review: "Social Death"
Summary: 4 Stars
Marion Kaplan's, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) is an in-depth study into the lives of Jewish people in Nazi Germany beginning with the takeover by Adolf Hitler in 1933. She concludes that not only were the physical lives of the Jewish people tormented and taken from them, the pervasiveness of the German government into everyday life led to emotional and physiological death of the Jews. In developing the reader's mind to comprehend the lives of the Jews, Kaplan gives attention to little known details of Nazi Germany. As spoken about in chapter one, by establishing the Jews as social outcasts, they were removed from the rest of Germany. The new position of Jews in the public sphere affected their private lives as well. Focusing primarily on the role of women in the Jewish household, the challenges of dealing with new laws makes apparent the death beyond that of the physical means. Perhaps most intrusive to the emotional downfall of the Jews was the hostile environment they were forced to live in everyday. Faced with the torturous nature of school, Jewish children became aware of the plight of their families even as their parents tried to hide it from them. The November Pogrom of 1938 stifled the Jews politically, economically, and socially more intensely and more violently that ever before. By the official outbreak of World War II, Hitler had succeeded in massacring the Jews psychologically.
Throughout the book Marion Kaplan makes it very apparent that the destruction of Jews did not begin when war was declared in 1939 but instead in 1933. The affliction against the Jewish people deteriorated them emotionally and psychologically as well as physically. There is concrete evidence proposed in the book such as the staggering number of suicides, and the indifference to death among the Jews. The deceased were not criticized or blamed for their actions, but they were admired and envied signifying the loss of Jewish will to live.
Overall, Marion Kaplan's Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany is extremely well written. Through her frequent use of primary sources, the pain and distress of the Jews is more easily comprehended as the expressions of the suffering Jews appeal to the reader's emotions. Its exploration of little known details of Jewish life in Germany is useful not only to those studying the Holocaust, but also to all people. Kaplan makes it evident that acts of discrimination or the invasiveness into one's private life can profoundly destroy a person's pride. Ultimately, the destruction of the emotional and physiological conditions of people can occur as it did to the Jews in Nazi Germany.
World Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in World Books
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern Warby Mark Bowden
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2000-03-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.17
Price in other shops:
Denying the Holocaustby Deborah Lipstadt
Penguin Books; Published: 1995-03-02; Paperback; Book
Western Europe in the Middle Ages 300-1475by Brian Tierney, Sidney Painter
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; Published: 1998-08-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $106.52
Corrections in the 21st Centuryby Frank Schmalleger, John Ortiz Smykla
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; Published: 2006-03-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.70
Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Mattersby Chesley B. Sullenberger, Jeffrey Zaslow
William Morrow; Published: 2009-10-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
Modern Times Revised Edition: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (Perennial Classics)by Paul Johnson
Harper Collins Publishers; Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2001-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.02
Price in other shops:
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocideby Samantha Power
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.97
Price in other shops:
1421: The Year China Discovered Americaby Gavin Menzies
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops:
"The Good Old Days"by Willi Dressen, Volker Riess
Free Press; Published: 1991-10-21; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.10
Price in other shops:
Wild Swansby Jung Chang
Harpercollins Audio; Published: 2004-06-07; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $15.87
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Beganby Art Spiegelman
Pantheon; Published: 1992-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
Holocaust: A Historyby Deborah Dwork, Robert Jan Van Pelt
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2003-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Smoke over Birkenau (Jewish Lives)by Liana Millu
Northwestern University Press; Published: 1998-02-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.35
Price in other shops:
Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscienceby Gitta Sereny
Vintage; Published: 1983-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Sources of the Holocaust (Documents in History)by Steve Hochstadt
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2004-04-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.00
Price in other shops:
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Polandby Jan T. Gross
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-10-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (Problems in European Civilization Series)by Donald Niewyk
Wadsworth Publishing; Published: 2010-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.54
Price in other shops:
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Polandby Christopher R. Browning
Harper Perennial; Published: 1993-02-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
Survival In Auschwitzby Primo Levi
Touchstone; Published: 1996-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.20
Price in other shops:
War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Critical Issues in World and International History)by Doris L. Bergen
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; Published: 2009-02-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.44
Price in other shops: