Wendy Lower, Hitlers Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013)
It seems quite reasonable to wonder if there\u2019s anything more to learn about the Holocaust. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have been researching and writing about the subject for decades. A simple search for \u201cHolocaust\u201d on Amazon turns up a stunning 27,642 results. How can there still be uncovered terrain?\n\nWendy Lower shows it is in fact possible to say new things about the Holocaust (to be fair, she\u2019s following a handful of other scholars who have focused on gender and the Holocaust). Her questions are simple. What did the approximately 500,000 women who went East to live and work in the territories occupied by the German armies know about the killing of Jews (and other categories of victims)? To what degree did they participate in the killing? How did this experience affect them after the war?\n\nHer answers are disturbing, to say the least. For Lower uncovers ample evidence that women both witnessed and participated in the so-called \u201cHolocaust by Bullets\u201d in Eastern Europe. The patterns of participation varied, as did their acknowledgement of their actions. But the evidence is undeniable that women played a significant role in facilitating the Final Solution.\n\nLower, along with people writing about Rwanda, about the frontiers of Australia and the United States, and a variety of other moments in time and space, illustrates our need to pay more attention to women and to gender in our study of mass violence. Hitler\u2019s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), is an admirable contribution to the discussion, well-researched, well-written and emotionally compelling. I can\u2019t think of a better place to start in examining these issues.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies