Although there is an immense amount of literature on the 'Final Solution' - the Nazis' attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe during the Second World War - many critical questions still remain unresolved. The authoritative essays in The Final Solution set out to clarify the origins of the attempted genocide of the Jews, and to provide new answers to this period of history which often seems inexplicable." "The book draws on important new evidence, much of it from archives in Eastern Europe which have only recently become accessible. Contributors are among the leading experts in the field. The essays focus on the preconditions and antecedents for the 'Final Solution' and the immediate origins of the decision to murder Europe's Jewish population. They consider, too, the impact of the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 on the evolution of a genocidal policy and the response of the peoples and governments in Germany, occupied Europe, the Free World and the Jewish communities under the Nazis and in the West." "The results of this study are often controversial. The essays challenge many accepted notions about the behaviour of the German Army, how much the Germans knew, and the response of the non-Jewish population in Occupied Europe and the West." "The Final Solution will be of great interest to students of modern European history. It will also make invaluable reading for anyone seeking to understand further this most tragic chapter of recent history.

Can the Holocaust be compellingly described or represented? Or is there some core aspect of the extermination of the Jews of Europe which resists our powers of depiction, of theory, of narrative? In this volume, twenty scholars probe the moral, epistemological, and aesthetic limits of an account or portrayal of the Nazi horror. Christopher Browning, Hayden White, Carlo Ginzburg, Martin Jay, Dominick LaCapra, and others focus first on the general question: can the record of his historical event be established objectively through documents and witnesses, or is every historical interpretation informed by the perspective of its narrator? The suggestion that all historical accounts are determined by a preestablished narrative choice raises the ethical and intellectual issues of various forms of relativization. In more specific terms, what are the possibilities of historicizing National Socialism without minimizing the historical place of the Holocaust? Also at issue are the problems related to an artistic representation, particularly the dilemmas posed by aestheticization. John Felstiner, Yael S. Feldman, Sidra Ezrahi, Eric Santner, and Anton Kaes grapple with these questions and confront the inadequacy of words in the face of the Holocaust. Others address the problem of fitting Nazi policies and atrocities into the history of Western thought and science. The book concludes with Geoffrey Hartman's evocative meditation on memory. These essays expose to scrutiny questions that have a pressing claim on our attention, our conscience, and our cultural memory. First presented at a conference organized by Saul Friedlander, they are now made available for the wide consideration and discussion they merit.