For the sake of those who say today that they didn’t know anything about it — a large part of the population did know about it. Perhaps [they didn’t know] that it was quite as brutal as it was in reality. But they knew that there were concentration camps. They knew that Jews were kept there. And later, word got around that they were gassed. It wasn’t for nothing that it was said in those years, “Take care, otherwise you’ll go up the chimney.” That was a familiar figure of speech. It circulated everywhere in Germany. [An expression like] “otherwise, you’ll go through the chimney” doesn’t come about by chance.
(from What We Knew, page 259)
I have read a lot of fiction and non-fiction about the Holocaust, much of it from the point of view of the Jewish survivors. But I’ve long been curious about what “ordinary” Germans had to say about life under the Third Reich, especially since my mother’s parents and her older brother were Germans living in Germany during that time. When my daughter, knowing my desire to learn as much as I can about Europe during World War II, bought me this book for Christmas, I started it right away but have only just finished it.
In What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany, Eric Johnson, a history professor at Central Michigan University, and Karl-Heinz Reuband, a sociology professor at the University of Düsseldorf, conducted written surveys of German Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and non-Jews who lived in Nazi Germany beginning in 1993. They also conducted in-depth interviews with nearly 200 of the survey respondents, 40 of which make up the bulk of the book.
The Jewish survivors’ testimonies are featured first, and Johnson and Reuband talked with Jews who fled Germany prior to Kristallnacht, or “night of broken glass,” in November 1938, Jews who left Germany after Kristallnahct, Jews who were deported from Germany during the war, and Jews who went into hiding. The second section features the testimonies of “ordinary” Germans and are divided into the following sections: those who said they knew little about the mass murder of the Jews, those who heard about the mass murder, and those who witnessed or participated in some way in the mass murder. The final chapters detail the survey results and attempt to determine how much Jews and non-Jews knew about the mass murder of the Jews during the war.
What We Knew is a fascinating, detailed analysis of how much people knew about the the Nazi regime’s supposedly top secret plans to exterminate the Jews, what life was like for Jews and non-Jews in the Third Reich, and whether fear played a major role in the actions of both groups of people. I applaud Johnson and Reuband for undertaking such an extensive project and completing it while the survivors and the others they interviewed were still alive to detail their experiences. Rather than just throw out the statistics, Johnson and Reuband first provide an oral history, allowing readers to hear what transpired directly from the mouths of those who lived it.
This is not the kind of book that you can read in one sitting — and not just because of the chapters where the survey data is analyzed in great details. Even when the interviewees are giving just the facts about their experiences, whether Holocaust survivor or a non-Jew traumatized by witnessing the massacre of thousands of Jews, it is hard to understand that something like that actually happened and heartbreaking to imagine yourself in their shoes. Johnson and Reuband include a variety of experiences to show how living in different cities or having the support of German neighbors, friends, or co-workers led to different outcomes. What We Knew aims to show both sides of the story by including the experiences of Germans during the war and by focusing on “ordinary” Germans, not those considered “hard-core Nazis.”
Johnson and Reuband discuss how and when Jews and non-Jews learned about the mass murder, and point out that even if someone had heard about it, they might not have believed it. Many Germans watched as Jews from their neighborhood were deported, but they may not have known that they were traveling to their deaths. Many German Jews were very patriotic, and they did not want to believe that their country was turning against them. Moreover, many Germans supported Hitler’s regime, not for its anti-Semitic policies, but because it ended the rampant unemployment after World War I, improved the highway system, and provided monetary support to struggling families. Johnson and Reuband also used the surveys to determine whether Jews and non-Jews lived in fear of the Gestapo, what kinds of anti-Nazi activities the “ordinary” Germans were involved in, how the Jews viewed relationships with non-Jews before and during the war, and how all of these things differed by city, age, and for the Jews, whether they left Germany before the war or eventually were sent to concentration camps, among other things.
What We Knew doesn’t aim to point fingers or lay blame, but simply to compare and contrast the lives and experiences of Jews and non-Jews in Nazi Germany to better our understanding of life during the Third Reich, explain how National Socialism rose to popularity, and ensure that the survivors’ testimonies are forever etched into our minds.
Disclosure: I received my copy of What We Knew as a gift. I am an IndieBound affiliate and an Amazon associate.
© 2011 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
I’ve read fiction that touched on this subject a tiny bit, but never any non-fiction. I’m curious now. I’ll have to pick this one up sometime. Your review was excellent. Thanks for participating this week.
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Thank you for hosting the event! I’m looking forward to reading all the participants’ reviews.
This was the first non-fiction book about the Holocaust that I’ve read that wasn’t a memoir by a survivor. It was interesting to read a different side of the story.
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Anna, another excellent review! Your daughter’s choice of book for you was spot on.
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Thanks, Suko! She bought me a similar book about Kristallnacht, which I hope to read soon.
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That does sound really interesting. I used to think it was hard to understand how people ignore things like that going on in their own country, but similar things are happening all over the world today.
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There was a quote that I should have included from one of the Germans that said unlike today, they couldn’t walk out their door and buy a foreign newspaper. They didn’t have broad access to the media like we do now. I thought that was an interesting observation, and something I hadn’t really considered, but it made sense to me.
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Sounds like an interesting book, though I’m not sure I like reading survey data too much…it gets a bit dry.
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The survey data takes up only a few chapters, and while it’s not as exciting as the interviews, I didn’t find it dry or boring at all. It’s just not something you’d spend the entire day reading, but in little chunks.
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it’s good to know that the data doesn’t take up too much of the book.
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They also provide numerous tables that you could look at to read the results if you did find their analysis a bit dry. I found it fascinating, though.
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This sounds like a powerful read Anna. Well dine review; thanks so much
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Thanks, Diane! I hope you consider reading it.
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[…] Comments « Review: What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany by Eric Johnson and Kar… […]
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This one sounds like a compelling and heartbreaking read. Thanks for the in-depth look at this one.
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It is heartbreaking, but now that I think about it, what’s interesting is that some of the stories have a depth of emotion, but others, the interviewees seem to have held back and just stated the facts. The book provides a lot of food for thought.
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I did read this YA book long ago about a German girl during the war, but then that just showed the Nazi side. She never thought anything was wrong. So would like both sides
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You’ll have to let me know what book you’re talking about. I’ve never read anything from that viewpoint.
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Wow – this sounds like an amazing book. I haven’t heard of it but I think I’m going to look for a copy now.
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I hope you get your hands on a copy! I hadn’t heard of this book either. I can’t believe my daughter found it on her own.
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You always have the best War Time and Holocaust books-I have read so many books that I have found here on your blog.
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Thanks, Esme! I feel like I’m only scratching the surface in my study of the era. It would have been great to have taken a course in college on it.
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[…] took part in Holocaust Remembrance Week at the beginning of May. I read two books, What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everday Life in Nazi Germany by Eric Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband and Far to Go by Alison Pick, and I also wrote a post about […]
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[…] de What We Knew que el suport al nazisme va ser més gran entre els homes, els joves i els protestants. També hi […]
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