Reflects on the interrelationship between war, genocide, and identity in the 20th century. Contends that World War I provided a pattern for the industrial killing that reached its apex in the Nazi Holocaust. Comparing France and Germany, both of which looked for an "elusive enemy" to help them cope with the trauma of World War I, notes that Germany found it in the Jews. This perception allowed the Germans to see themselves as victims and their actions against the Jews as self-defense. The search for "elusive enemies" (to blame for perpetrating the genocide) and "elusive victims" (e.g. the French or German people) continued after the war. Compares the French, German, and Jewish postwar discourses of the Holocaust. Presenting themselves as the main victims of Nazism, the French and Germans have tended to neglect Jews as the main victims. Criticizes writings by Hannah Arendt, Ka-Tzetnik, and some other postwar writers on the Holocaust and its roots.

"A fascinating and timely examination of how genocide can take root at the local level--turning neighbors, friends and even family members against one another--as seen through the little-known story of the Eastern European border town Buczacz during World War II"--

"A multifaceted exploration of the Holocaust which connects its relationship with genocide, the importance of first-person histories of atrocity, and links to the 1948 Palestinian Nakba together in unprecedented fashion"--

Product Description Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation examines the emergence, implementation, and representation of industrial killing, an inherent and crucial component of modernity whose most extreme manifestation was the Holocaust.The mechanized, impersonal, and sustained mass destruction of human beings, organized and legitimized by states, scientists, jurists, and intellectuals, is rooted in the industrial slaughterhouse of the Great War. In Murder in Our Midst, Omer Bartov argues that the Nazi death factories are best understood in the context of modern warfare, beginning with the First World War. He shows how the way we understand ourselves reflects the ambivalent effects of the Holocaust on our perceptions of war and violence, history and memory, progress and barbarism.Analyzing a wide array of historical texts, works of fiction, films, and museums, Bartov leads the reader from ancient myths of heroism to the trenches of the Western Front, from Thomas Mann's romantic vision of war to Primo Levi's stark depictions of genocide, from colonial war museums to the visual art of the Holocaust. These representations of killing share some of the same important features. They attempt to form coherent images from horrific events, to draw didactic lessons from them, and to use them for political ends. About the Author Omer Bartov is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University.

A collection of articles, excerpts from books and articles, and review essays published previously, revised and updated for this edition. Partial contents:

"Focusing on the former province of Galicia, this book tells the story of Europe's eastern borderlands, stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans, through the eyes of the diverse communities of migrants who settled there for centuries and were murdered or forcibly removed from the borderlands in the course of World War II and its aftermath. Omer Bartov explores the fates and hopes, dreams and disillusionment of the people who lived there, and, through the stories they told about themselves, reconstructs who they were, where they came from, and where they were heading. It was on the borderlands that the expanding great empires--German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman--overlapped, clashed, and disintegrated. The civilization of these borderlands was a mix of multiple cultures, languages, ethnic groups, religions, and nations that similarly overlapped and clashed. The borderlands became the cradle of modernity. Looking back at it tells us where we came from." -- Provided by publisher.

In 2003-04, Bartov traveled to Eastern Galicia to search for remnants of the rich pre-Holocaust Jewish culture and for Holocaust memorials. In his travel notes and reflections on historical memory in Ukraine, he shows how the memory of the Jewish past is deliberately erased. There is a strong tendency to hide from sight or to demolish or desecrate all remnants of Jewish life and civilization in Eastern Galicia. Memorial tablets commemorating Nazi massacres do not mention that the victims were Jews or that many of the murderers were Ukrainians. In an attempt to create a national myth of the Ukrainian nation as a martyr of Soviet oppression, Jews are slandered and anti-Soviet organizations like OUN and UPA, which took part in the genocide of Jews, are extolled. In many cases, sites of Jewish life and death are filled with symbols of Ukrainian nationalism and glory. Presents quotes from the present-day Ukrainian antisemitic press blaming Jews for alleged "crimes" against the Ukrainian nation. Includes brief accounts of the events of the Holocaust in some of the places that Bartov visited.

Analyzes the image of the Jew in flims from the 1920s through the 1990s, in a number of countries (the USSR, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East and West Germany, France, Italy, the USA, and Israel). Highlights the influence of stereotypes not only in antisemitic films, but also in pro-Jewish and anti-antisemitic ones, revealing how latent antisemitic images have been projected even in the latter two types of films. Contains a broad range of films, including Nazi documentaries and Hollywood films with Jewish or "Jewish" heroes (e.g. Paul Newman in "Exodus"). The sections deal with the "Jew" as perpetrator, victim, hero, and anti-hero. The analyses of many different films explore issues related to antisemitism and the Shoah. Celluloid images of the "Jew" have both reflected history and helped to mold it.