Product Information
The Silesian town of Bedzin lies a mere twenty-five miles from Auschwitz; through the linked ghettos of Bedzin and its neighbouring town, some 85,000 Jews passed on their way to slave labour or the gas chambers. The principal civilian administrator of Bedzin, Udo Klausa, was a happily married family man. A Small Town Near Auschwitz re-creates Udo Klausa's story. Using a wealth of personal letters, memoirs, testimonies, interviews and other sources, Mary Fulbrook pieces together his role in the unfolding stigmatization and degradation of the Jews under his authority, as well as the heroic attempts at resistance on the part of some of the victims of Nazi racial policies in this area. She also gives us a fascinating insight into the inner conflicts of a Nazi functionary who, throughout, considered himself a 'decent' man. And she explores the conflicting memories and evasions of his life after the war. And, as she Fulbrook constantly reminds us, Klausa's case is important because it is so typical in many ways. Behind Klausa's story is the story of how countless local functionaries across the Third Reich facilitated the murderous plans of a relatively small number among the Nazi elite - and of how those plans could never have been realized, on the same scale, without the diligent cooperation of these generally very ordinary administrators.Product Identifiers
PublisherOxford University Press
ISBN-139780199603305
eBay Product ID (ePID)117398845
Product Key Features
Publication Year2012
SubjectHistory
Number of Pages464 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameA Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust
TypeTextbook
AuthorMary Fulbrook
FormatHardcover
Additional Product Features
Country/Region of ManufactureUnited Kingdom
Title_AuthorMary Fulbrook