The Nazi concentration camps forced millions of people into settings of extreme stress, which continues to exert influence decades later. Because of the magnitude of the event, its origins and effects present profound difficulties to scholars, educators and concerned laypeople.
Originally published in 1980 Survivors Victims and Perpetrators overcomes many of those difficulties through a comprehensive, multidisciplinary analysis of the Nazi holocaust. Scholars from numerous fields collaborated to approach the phenomenon of the concentration camps from varying angles of perception.
The first chapters consider the history of the concentration camps, anti-Semitism, and political opposition to the Nazis in Weimar Germany. The following chapters discuss the fate of concentration camp survivors, their physical and emotional health, their methods of coping with the stress of the camps, their responses to psychotherapy, and their children's difficulties in facing such a legacy. The book concludes with analysis of the Nazis' behavior. Excerpts from the autobiographies of Goebbels and Hoess present a brief sampling of their world view. These are followed by psychological studies of the possible determinants of SS behavior.
The chapters are sensitive, challenging works of scholarship remarkably free from the specialized language of each field. At the time, there was no comparable book that approached the concentration camps from such a multidisciplinary perspective.
Survivors Victims and Perpetrators can be read on many levels. Intended for clinicians and students of psychology and psychiatry, it is conceptually accessible to readers in numerous other fields, including history, political science, and sociology. The book is a major contribution to courses in twentieth-century German history, political science, and Jewish studies.