The Crime of My Very Existence

Download or read book The Crime of My Very Existence written by Prof. Michael Berkowitz and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-09-03 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crime of My Very Existence investigates a rarely considered yet critical dimension of anti-Semitism that was instrumental in the conception and perpetration of the Holocaust: the association of Jews with criminality. Drawing from a rich body of documentary evidence, including memoirs and little-studied photographs, Michael Berkowitz traces the myths and realities pertinent to the discourse on "Jewish criminality" from the eighteenth century through the Weimar Republic, into the complex Nazi assault on the Jews, and extending into postwar Europe.