A Thematic View of the Harry W. Mazal CollectionNazi War Crime Trials 2

In 1993, Harry W. Mazal started The Mazal Holocaust Library to provide resources for combating Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. Of the collection’s over 25,000 books and other sources, there are many themes that run throughout the entire collection. The following expandable options elaborate on some of these themes and list several items you can find in the Harry W. Mazal Holocaust Collection at CU Boulder. The themes selected here generally relate to the Jewish experience and perspectives about different cultural, religious, and ethnic groups both pre- and post-Holocaust.

 


Conversion Practice and Persecution
Many of those touched by the repercussions of the Holocaust were forced to make the decision between religion and survival. Some saw the racism and unrest early in the process and converted to avoid persecution, but, as some of these texts discuss, it was too late for others. After Kristallnacht, it was increasingly difficult for conversions to go through if desired. Other texts cover the manner in which people, not just Jews, were treated after the liberation of the concentration camps - as if they were still dangerous or a risk to society after their torment.  

  • The Jewish People and Jesus Christ After Auschwitz: a study in the controversy between the church and the synagogue by Jakob Jocz BM535.J57 1981 The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
  • Judaism and the Vatican by Vicomte Leon de Pncins
    • BM535.P573
  • Responsa from the Holocaust by Rabbi Ephraim Oshry
    • BM520.3.O 8413 2001
  • Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
    • BX 1378.G57 2002
  • The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany by Guenter Lewy
    • BX 1536.L4
  • Anti-Semitism and the Christian Mind: The Crisis of Conscience after Auschwitz by Alan T. Davies
    • BM 535.D345
  • The Jew and Human Sacrifice by Hermann L. Strack
    • BM 717.S86 1909

Anti-Semitism
A major fuel for growing support in Germany during the Third Reich was the notion that Jewish people were inherently bad and harming the community. Many citizens of Eastern Europe fell into the notion that if the Jews were contained or Germany was rid of them, the economy and quality of life would improve. This was seen particularly in propaganda and campaigns to contain, intern, and eventually kill eastern European Jews during the early 1940’s. Part of the success of these campaigns came from years of tension and blame, wherein Jewish people were blamed for events such as children going missing eventually leading to Judaism being associated with degree with Satanic practice. Even after the Holocaust, there was and is still is rampant anti-Semitism in some areas for similar supposed reasons. Mazal has collected texts from many facets of Anti-Semitism, to help bring awareness to the problem.

  • Anti-Semitism: A Modern Perspective by Caroline Arnold & Herma Silverstein Blood Ritual
    • DS 145.A69 1985
  • Blood RItual by Phillip de Vier
    • BM 585.2.D43 2001
  • Anti-Semitism Throughout the Ages by Count Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi
    • DS 145.C62 1935
  • Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the HolocaustI by Gabriel Wilensky
    • BM 535.W5546 2010
  • Cry of Cassandra: THe Resurgance of European Anti-Semitism by Simon Epstein
    • DS 146.F8 E6713 1985

Holocaust Denial
In an effort to fight Holocaust denial, or "Revisionism," Harry Mazal collected materials from both sides of discussion. Many selections in the collection go in depth on why some people refuse to accept that the Holocaust was a real event and do not believe that 6 million people, specifically Jews, died in the concentration camps across Europe. Other deniers believe that camps may have existed, but they were never death camps. These texts go into detail about multiple aspects of denial, including works that explain why denial helped to fuel the genocide, works that cover post-Holocaust thought and why the author believe it’s impossible that the atrocity occurred, and even some that discuss the experience of interned people just after liberation, and the manner in which they were treated by the immediate communities who had not been aware or had refused to believe that the camp was actually killing so many people.

  • Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe by Leon Poliakov The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
    • D 810.J4 P614813 1979
  • The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by A.R. Butz
    • D 810.J4 B87 1977
  • Documents on the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union by Yitzhak Arad (ed), Uisrael Gutman (ed), & Abraham Margaliot (ed)
    • D 810.J4 D58 1990
  • The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's "Final Solution" by Walter Laquer
    • D 810.J4 L278 1982

Social, Cultural, and Religious Jewishness
Every social and cultural group has a unique and distinct experience, but the Jewish experience is particularly unique. Portions of the Mazal collection focus on the Jewish experience, both in World War II Germany and beyond, including biographies describing the tension felt immediately before and after the war, experience during the Holocaust, and works analyzing what it must be like to exist in a socio-ethnic group that has been an outlet for tension for so long.

  • Judaism Transcends Catastrophe: God, Torah, and Israel Beyond the Holocaust by Jacon Neusner (ed) Eight Questions People Ask about Judaism
    • BM 645.H6 J83 1994
  • The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry by Walter N. Sanning
    • 135.E83 S3313 1983
  • Eight Questions People Ask About Judaism by Dennis Prager & Joseph Telushkin
    • BM 565.P7
  • Jews in the Post-War World by Max Gottschalk & Abraham G. Duker
    • D 829.J4 G65 1945
  • Child of the Holocaust by Jack Kuper
    • D 810.J4 k87 1967
  • What? Again those Jews? by Henry L. Lantner
    • DS 145.L34 1997
  • A Guide for Reform Jews by Frederic A. Doppelt & David Polish
    • BM 700.D67 1957 

Themes compiled by CU Boulder student Ellen Gostling in Spring 2018. Ellen's research was supported by a Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections Undergraduate Scholarship from the Program in Jewish Studies.


 

Selection of Materials from the Harry W. Mazal Holocaust Collection