Dance on the razor's edge : crime and punishment in the Nazi ghettos /
The ghettos established by the Nazis in German-occupied eastern Europe during the Second World War have mainly been seen as lawless spaces marked by brutality, tyranny and the systematic murder of the Jewish population. Drawing on examples from the Warsaw, Lodz and Vilna ghettos, Dance on the Razor&...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Toronto ; Buffalo :
University of Toronto Press,
[2021]
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| Series: | German and European studies ;
39. |
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| Summary: | The ghettos established by the Nazis in German-occupied eastern Europe during the Second World War have mainly been seen as lawless spaces marked by brutality, tyranny and the systematic murder of the Jewish population. Drawing on examples from the Warsaw, Lodz and Vilna ghettos, Dance on the Razor's Edge explores how under these circumstances highly improvised legal spheres emerged in these coerced and heterogeneous ghetto communities. Looking at sources from multiple archives and countries, this book investigates how the Jewish Councils, set up on German orders, formulated new definitions of criminal offenses and established legal institutions on their own initiative as a desperate attempt to ensure the survival of the ghetto communities. Bethke explores how people under these circumstances tried to make sense of everyday lives that had been turned upside down, taking with them prewar notions of justice and morality, and considers the extent to which this rupture led to new judgments on human behavior. In doing so, this book aims to understand how people attempted to use their very limited scope for action in order to survive. Set against the background of a Holocaust historiography that often still seeks for clear categories of "good" and "bad" behavior, Dance on the Razor's Edge calls for a new understanding of the ghettos as complex communities in an unprecedented emergency situation. |
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| Item Description: | Translation of: Tanz auf Messers Schneide : Kriminalität und Recht in den Ghettos Warschau, Litzmannstadt und Wilna. |
| Physical Description: | x, 285 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781487523541 1487523548 9781487504922 1487504926 |