Large Part of German Society Backed Holocaust, Author Says
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PHILADELPHIA — A significant proportion of German society supported the Holocaust, which was led by sane men, not lunatics, the author of a critically acclaimed book about that period said Sunday.
“There can be no Holocaust without a significant participation of all segments of society,” Raul Hilberg, a University of Vermont political science professor, said at the opening of the 10th annual Conference on Teaching the Holocaust.
“Germany was not a centralized state in which everything was decided in Berlin. If anything, it was decentralized,” he said.
Hilberg is the author of “The Destruction of the European Jews,” a critically acclaimed book published in 1961, and he has edited other books on the Holocaust.
Hilberg spoke at a three-day conference, called “Liberation: 40 Years After,” which was one of many events around the world marking the 40th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Nazi death camps.
The American observances will culminate April 21-23 with the Inaugural Assembly of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia.
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