Few scholarly fields have developed in recent decades as rapidly and vigorously as Holocaust Studies. At the start of the twenty-first century, the persecution and murder perpetrated by the Nazi regime have become the subjects of an enormous literature in multiple academic disciplines and a touchstone of public and intellectual discourse in such diverse fields as politics, ethics and religion. Forward-looking and multi-disciplinary, this handbook draws on the work of an international team of forty-seven outstanding scholars. The handbook is thematically divided into five broad sections. Part One,Enablers, concentrates on the broad and necessary contextual conditions for the Holocaust. Part Two,Protagonists, concentrates on the principal persons and groups involved in the Holocaust and attempts to disaggregate the conventional interpretive categories of perpetrator, victim, and bystander. It examines the agency of the Nazi leaders and killers and of those involved in resisting and surviving the assault. Part Three,Settings, concentrates on the particular places, sites, and physical circumstances where the actions of the Holocaust's protagonists and the forms of persecution were literally grounded. Part Four,Representations, engages complex questions about how the Holocaust can and should be grasped and what meaning or lack of meaning might be attributed to events through historical analysis, interpretation of texts, artistic creation and criticism, and philosophical and religious reflection. Part Five,Aftereffects, explores the Holocaust's impact on politics and ethics, education and religion, national identities and international relations, the prospects for genocide prevention, and the defense of human rights.

Introduction, Peter Hayes and John K. Roth
I: Enablers
1. Antisemitism, Richard S. Levy
2. Science, Patricia Heberer
3. Nationalism, Eric D. Weitz
4. Colonialism, A. Dirk Moses
5. Fascism, Philip Morgan
6. World Wars, Doris Bergen
II: Protagonists
7. Hitler and Himmler, Alan E. Steinweis
8. Problem-Solvers, Christopher Browning
9. Killers, Edward Westermann
10. On-Lookers, Paul Levine
11. Rescuers, Deborah Dwork
12. Jews, Dan Michman
13. Women, Lenore J. Weitzman
14. Children, Nicholas Stargardt
15. Catholics, Kevin P. Spicer
16. Protestants, Robert P. Ericksen
17. The Allies, Shlomo Aronson
18. Gypsies/Homosexuals/Slavs, John Connelly
III: Settings
19. Greater Germany, Wolf Gruner
20. Living Space, Wendy Lower
21. Occupied and Satellite States, Radu Ioanid
22. Ghettos, Martin C. Dean
23. Labor Sites, Mark Spoerer
24. Camps, Karin Orth
IV: Representations
25. German Documents/Diaries, Peter Fritzsche
26. Jews' Diaries/Chronicles, Amos Goldberg
27. Survivors' Accounts, Henry Greenspan
28. Literature, Sara R. Horowitz
29. Film, Lawrence Baron
30. Art, Dora Apel
31. Music, Bret Werb
32. Memorials and Museums, James E. Young
V: Aftereffects
33. Liberation and Dispersal, Arieh J. Kochavi
34. Punishment, Rebecca Wittmann
35. Plunder and Restitution, Peter Hayes
36. Denial, Deborah E. Lipstadt
37. Israel, Boaz Cohen
38. Jewish Culture, Jeffrey Shandler
39. Judaism, Michael Berenbaum
40. Christianity, Stephen R. Haynes
41. Germany, Jeffrey Herf
42. Europe, Jan-Werner Muller
43. The Social Sciences, James E. Waller
44. The Humanities, Berel Lang
45. Education, Simone Schweber
46. Human Rights Law, David H. Jones
47. Ethics, John K. Roth
Afterword, Peter Hayes and John K. Roth