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Holocaust


  • The Pope at War: Pius XII and the Vatican's Secret Archives

    by James Thornton Harris

    David Kertzer's book argues that defenders of Pope Pius XII's actions during the Holocaust mistake his defense of the prerogatives of the Catholic Church for a defense of the victims of Nazi persecution and genocide. 



  • A Stranger's Gift: Family Photos from Before the Holocaust

    Software engineer Daniel Patt has developed an artificial intelligence program that can expedite the searching of photos from repositories like Yad Vashem and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has provided strangers with the gift of a connection to their relatives. 



  • Monuments to the Unthinkable

    by Clint Smith

    German and European memorials to the Holocaust contrast starkly with an American memorial culture where the Confederate dead are revered, former slave plantations are tourist attractions, and state legislatures are seeking to ban the teaching of the nation's history in full. 



  • The Moral Corruption of Holocaust Fiction

    A popular book for young readers strips the Holocaust of its horror, and its victims of their Jewishness in favor of banal lessons about empathy and kindness. 



  • Fascists' PR Plan? Distance from Associations with Jewish Genocide

    by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

    Despite the efforts of denialists, the Holocaust remains a significant obstable to public acceptance of fascism. Contemporary far-right politicians have adopted the position that genocide was a step too far beyond an otherwise good ideology. 


  • A Holocaust Mystery: Ken Burns Gets Lost in a Bermuda Triangle

    by Rafael Medoff and Monty N. Penkower

    At the 1943 Bermuda Conference, British and American diplomats offered a symbolic show of concern for Jewish refugees, but made no substantial commitment to help. Ken Burns's recent holocaust documentary passes over this event. 


  • Anne Frank's Next Diary Entries

    by Bernice Lerner

    When I was a teenager, I imagined that Anne Frank was at my mother’s 15th birthday party. After all, they were the same age and they were both in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. How did I arrive at such a phantastic conflation?



  • Texas District Removes Graphic Version of Diary of Anne Frank

    “It’s disgusting. It’s devastating. It’s legitimate book banning, there’s no way around it,” Laney Hawes, a parent of four children in the Keller district, told JTA about the order. “I feel bad for the teachers and the librarians.”



  • A Legend of Innocence

    by Daniel Solomon

    Both the French left and right are impeding the teaching of how 75,000 French Jews were turned over to the Nazis. 



  • The Back Channel Between Pius XII and Hitler

    by David I. Kertzer

    The Vatican has only just now released documents about secret and sensitive negotiations between the Nazi leader and the Holy See, in which the Vatican agreed to temper criticisms of Nazism's pagan elements in exchange for ceasing investigation of sex crimes by priests.