The Holocaust: An Unfinished History

• Author: Dan Stone
• Genre: Nonfiction History/War
• Publication Date: January 23, 2024
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A revelatory new history that reexamines the brutal reality of the Holocaust—and reinterprets the events as a living trauma from which modern society has not yet recovered

The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London—reveals how the idea of “industrial murder” is incomplete: Many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguing persuasively that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. He also considers the nature of trauma the Holocaust engendered, and why Jewish suffering has yet to be fully reckoned with. And he makes clear that the kernel to understanding Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins.

Drawing on decades of research, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History upends much of what we think we know about the Holocaust. Stone draws on Nazi documents, diaries, post-war testimonies, and even fiction, arguing that, in our age of increasing nationalism and xenophobia, understanding the true history of the Holocaust is vital.

When it comes to any type of books about the Holocaust, whether it is fiction or nonfiction, history or memoir, fantasy or historical fiction, I have to be cautious about which ones I choose to read. It also depends on my state of mind and the matter being discussed in the book, since some of the books trigger my own intergenerational trauma as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. 

The summary of this book sounded immediately intriguing to me. This is the first time that I’ve seen a history book that explicitly views the Holocaust as a living trauma that society still hasn’t healed from. The Holocaust is a current wound that the Jewish community still feels the pain of, and Stone validates that in this book that explores the Holocaust from revolutionary angles. Most Ashkenazi Jewish families are only one or two generations removed from a survivor … or an entire branch of the family that was wiped out.

To start with, Stone outright acknowledges that the Holocaust was, in fact, a German invention, and it wouldn’t have occurred if not for the impetus that Nazi Germany provided. But he also pays a decent amount of attention to the fact that the Holocaust was a continent-wide crime that would not have been possible without the collaboration of many governments and civilians across Europe. 

When thinking of the Holocaust, two iconic images come to mind for me: the forbidding gates of Auschwitz and people in ill-fitting striped uniforms, emaciated to the point where I wonder how they can even stand. But the majority of the Holocaust occurred outside of the camps—in large-scale shootings that occurred face-to-face in the Soviet Union, such as Babi Yar; in pogroms in the towns where they lived; in enthusiastic participation by occupied governments, such as Vichy France; through a combination of starvation, disease, and overcrowding in the ghettoes they were forced into; and forced labor in hazardous condition that were guaranteed to cause death in a short period of time. Many Jews were killed in the town that they lived in, while their neighbors watched, or even worse, participated. Jews who went into hiding lived in fear of a former neighbor recognizing them and turning them in to the Germans. Some did it for a reward, some did it simply because they hated Jews. Antisemitism was at very high levels in much of Europe at the time.

This statement shouldn’t be a shocking one. Looking at the populations of the European countries at the time compared to the numbers of The Righteous Among the Nations, a listing of gentiles who risked their lives to help Jews during the Holocaust, it’s clear that the majority didn’t do anything to help their Jewish neighbors and former friends. The statement is revolutionary because it goes against the accepted narrative that the entire fault for the Holocaust lies with Germany, and that everyone in every other country was a victim, or better yet, a brave hero! In fact, in Poland, it is illegal to say that the country or anyone in it collaborated with the Nazis. However, they also passed a law that Jewish people are not entitled to get any property back, such as property or belongings that were stolen during the Holocaust.

I appreciated that the author mentioned the fact that the Holocaust wasn’t solely limited to Europe, a fact that is too often overlooked. Hitler’s reach infiltrated into North Africa, which was under French control at the time, and Jews that lived in that area were also in danger. I do wish that he would have devoted a little more attention to that, since the information in that area isn’t as widely known. Stone also discusses how the local population and government could have a mitigating effect on the outcome of the lives of the Jews in their country, with countries that had less antisemitic views tending to be more protective of “their” Jews. 

Stone does a fantastic job with this book, providing a lot of information without making it feel dry and boring. At no point did I feel like I was reading a textbook, but there was so much that I highlighted and learned from this book. And that says a lot for someone who grew up surrounded by Holocaust history books and documentaries. It was interesting to see how Stone looked at things from all angles, and really tried his best to avoid interjecting his own opinion as best as possible. Instead, he puts forth facts and lets them speak for themselves. One thing that he keeps upfront at all times is the fact that the Nazi ideology was always based on Jew-hatred and an ultimate goal of genocide, up until the end, even when it made no sense to continue to devote resources to that goal at the expense of another, namely defense and survival. Overall, this is a book that I would absolutely recommend for anyone wanting to learn more about the Holocaust, or for people who already know about it and want to learn more about it.

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