BOOKS
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In other words, Holocaust historians, for better or worse, delve into
data culled from archives to come up with interpretations and counterinter–
pretations that tend to leave out the experiences of the victims.
In the first contribution to
Fran~ois
Furet's Holocaust reader, a collec–
tion of articles by the foremost experts on the subject who met in Paris in
1982, Saul Friedlander begins by stating that historians proceed from two
opposing premises. They believe, with Isaac Deutscher, that the Holocaust
of the Jews was an absolutely unique event and thus cannot be properly un–
derstood. Or they follow Raymond Aron (who planned the conference be–
fore his death) in holding that the genocide was not irrational; that,
if
one ad–
mits that Hitler's primary aim was the liquidation of the Jews, of "the Jewish
poison," then the men and the means of transportation needed for this end
had to be diverted even from the armed forces. The global explanations of
the Holocaust, states Friedlander, place German anti-Semitism or
"vdlkish"
thinking into historical perspective, perceive it as part of the national or racial
ideology; some of these studies proceed from Marxist assumptions to inter–
pretations offascism and/or totalitarianism, others compare the Nazis' anti–
Semitism to those of Italian fascists toward Africans and Slavs. Concrete in–
terpretations, Friedlander explains, may be "intentionalist" (there is a direct
relationship between ideology, planning and policy) or "functionalists"
(decisions are linked to specific contexts and are made almost
ad hoc,
often by
loyal lieutenants who second-guess their fuhrer.)
I do not mean to underestimate the work and dedication that went into
any ofthe researches, although some are more speculative than others. But
even though it is easy enough to dismiss "revisionist" historians such as Fau–
risson and Rassinier, as Pierre Vidal-Naquet demonstrates in his essay, many
other contributions as well clearly point to biases coming from historians'
specific political beliefs.
Arno Mayer's
Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?,
though an informa–
tive
tour deforce,
is one of the cleverest and most erudite revisionist histories.
As
a latecomer to Holocaust studies, Mayer is able to draw on the massive
research of his colleagues. Some of the reviewers have faulted him for not
footnoting his sources, although for the most part they have praised or cen–
sured
him
in line with their own political stances.
In his preface, Mayer states that instead of reappraising and historiciz–
ing the Judeocide (his word for the Holocaust) one must "abandon the van–
tage point of the Cold War," place it in its "pertinent historical setting," and
use an "overarching interpretive construct" to explain the horrors of the
Jewish catastrophe in the context of historical circumstances. To this end, he
begins by analyzing the interests of the elites who, despite their strong
reservations, helped Hitler get into power and later on backed his military
drive for
Lebensraum
in Eastern Europe; he traces within Nazi ideology the
