Victimized Estonians Murder “Bolshevized Jews” in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume 39:2

Erich Haberer

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Victimized Estonians Murder “Bolshevized Jews”: Anton Weiss-Wendt, Murder Without Hatred: Estonians and the Holocaust

“Victimized Estonians murder ‘Bolshevized Jews’” is a satirical play on the title of the book Murder without Hatred, and by extension, of its thesis that Estonians generally did not harbor antisemitic hatreds motivating the killing of Jews. On the contrary, the Estonians themselves were the victims of circumstances that compelled them to murder their fellow Jewish citizens, but only after first exposing them as Communist sympathizers and saboteurs of Bolshevik Russia. Accordingly, antisemitism in whatever form is ruled out as either a necessary or sufficient cause of genocide. Instead, the Holocaust in Estonia is interpreted as a function of Estonian collaboration in general and, as critically noted in this review, merely considered a byproduct of integral Estonian nationalism under Nazi tutelage.

Victimized Estonians Murder “Bolshevized Jews”: Anton Weiss-Wendt, Murder Without Hatred: Estonians and the Holocaust

“Victimized Estonians murder ‘Bolshevized Jews’” is a satirical play on the title of the book Murder without Hatred, and by extension, of its thesis that Estonians generally did not harbor antisemitic hatreds motivating the killing of Jews. On the contrary, the Estonians themselves were the victims of circumstances that compelled them to murder their fellow Jewish citizens, but only after first exposing them as Communist sympathizers and saboteurs of Bolshevik Russia. Accordingly, antisemitism in whatever form is ruled out as either a necessary or sufficient cause of genocide. Instead, the Holocaust in Estonia is interpreted as a function of Estonian collaboration in general and, as critically noted in this review, merely considered a byproduct of integral Estonian nationalism under Nazi tutelage.

Products specifications
ISSN 0084-3296
Year 2011
ISBN 78-965-308-40
Catalog No. 039208
No. of Pages 16 pp.
Format Electronic article in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume 39:2, pp. 235-250, Edited by David Silberklang
Publisher Yad Vashem
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