Summer of Mass Murder

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A01=George Eisen
Author_George Eisen
Category=NHD
Category=NHTZ1
Category=NHWR7
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extermination
Final Solution
Galicia
gas chamber
genocide
Germany
Gestapo
Himmler
Holocaust
Hungary
Jeckeln
Kamenets-Podolsk
mass murder
Nazi
Shoah
socialism
Ukraine
World War II
WWII

Product details

  • ISBN 9781612497761
  • Weight: 363g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
  • Publication Date: 15 Dec 2022
  • Publisher: Purdue University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Most accounts of the Holocaust focus on trainloads of prisoners speeding toward Auschwitz, with its chimneys belching smoke and flames, in the summer of 1944. This book provides a hitherto untold chapter of the Holocaust by exploring a prequel to the gas chambers: the face-to-face mass murder of Jews in Galicia by bullets.

The summer of 1941 ushered in a chain of events that had no precedent in the rapidly unfolding history of World War II and the Holocaust. In six weeks, more than twenty thousand Hungarian Jews were forcefully deported to Galicia and summarily executed. In exploring the fate of these Hungarian Jews and their local coreligionists, A Summer of Mass Murder transcends conventional history by introducing a multitude of layers of politics, culture, and, above all, psychology—for both the victims and the executioners.

The narrative presents an uncharted territory in Holocaust scholarship with extensive archival research, interviews, and corresponding literature across countries and languages, incorporating many previously unexplored documents and testimonies. Eisen reflects upon the voices of the victims, the images of the perpetrators, whose motivation for murder remains inexplicable. In addition, the author incorporates the long-forgotten testimonies of bystander contemporaries, who unwittingly became part of the unfolding nightmare and recorded the horror in simple words.

This book also serves as a personal journey of discovery. Among the twenty thousand people killed was the tale of two brothers, the author's uncles. In retracing their final fate and how they were swept up in the looming genocide, A Summer of Mass Murder also gives voice to their story.

George Eisen is the president of EV Global Education Consulting, and professor emeritus of history and political science at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. He is the author of numerous books and articles about the Holocaust, including Children and Play in the Holocaust, which received the American Library Association's Outstanding Academic Book of the Year Award in 1991. As a scholar, Eisen has served as keynote speaker and organizer of major international conferences, workshops, and art projects commemorating the Holocaust. Committed to increasing international awareness of the tragedy of the Holocaust, he has spoken extensively to community and student groups all over the world. He holds three honorary doctorates and received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Leadership at Nazareth College in 2013.

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