The end of 1942
Subtitle: a turning point in World War II and in the comprehension of the Final Solution?
By: edited by Dina Porat and Dan Michman ; in cooperation with Haim Saadoun
Contributors: Mikhman, Dan, editor; Yad ṿa-shem, rashut ha-zikaron la-Shoʼah ṿela-gevurah; International Institute for Holocaust Research
Publisher: Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center; International Institute for Holocaust Research
Published: 2017
Place of publication: Jerusalem
Language: eng
Number of pages: 383
ISBN-13: 9789653085626
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: World War, 1939-1945; Congresses; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Description: "During the second half of 1942, several events signaled a shift on the fronts of World War II. The failed German summer offensive on the Eastern Front led to the encirclement of the Sixth Army in Stalingrad. In Northern Africa, Operation Torch marked the prelude to the defeat of the German Africa Corps. Since 1941, information had begun to trickle out about the German mass murder program in the occupied territories. The first counteroffensives of the Red Army had led to an initial understanding of the scope of the killings, but additional, reliable sources like the Riegner Telegram provided important details and indicated the shift to the industrial extermination of the Final Solution. As a result, the Allies and Jewish organizations published their first official statements that addressed the German murder operations. The Allies' position and their response to the growing evidence of genocidal action remains a matter of debate among historians. Could the leaders of the Allied nations have understood the magnitude of the Final Solution sooner? Were they in a situation that would have allowed them to invest more resources to rescue its Jewish victims? Yad Vashem's nineteenth biannual international conference gathered scholars from fifteen countries to discuss these questions from a wide variety of angles. This volume, edited by senior historians Dina Porat and Dan Michman, includes selected articles by contributing researchers with the aim to provide new insights and answers into the developments that unfolded during that critical phase of the war"--Back cover.
Notes: "This volume is based on the lectures presented at the international conference 'The End of 1942: A Turning Point in World War II and in the Comprehension of the Final Solution?'"--Page facing title page.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The world war in the second half of 1942 : the Eastern Front and the Mediterranean / Antony Beevor; title: From Allied defeat to Allied victory : from a worldwide holocaust to a limited one / Gerhard L. Weinberg; title: The intelligence community and the Holocaust : was December 1942 a turning point? / Joel Zisenwine; title: "Vacillating policy" and "systemless system" : war-time Jewish perceptions of German Judenpolitik before the 1942 turning point / Jürgen Matthäus; title: Allied fronts and Jewish fates : late 1942 to early 1943 / Shlomo Aronson; title: Those who did not believe : on the reception of the Allied declaration of December 17, 1942 / Florent Brayard; title: Responses of the rabbinical world in Eretz Israel to the Battle of El Alamein and the geo-political changes during the war in the second half of 1942 / Isaac Hershkowitz; title: Jewish leadership in North Africa : the transformative implications of World War II / Haim Saadoun; title: The difficult reestablishment of the Crémieux Decree (November 8, 1942-October 20, 1943) : is the "Arabic scarecrow" a legend? / Emmanuel Debono; title: Keeping Stalingrad in mind? Fluctuations of German Judenpolitik in the Northern Caucasus, November 22, 1942-December 31, 1942 / Kiril Feferman; title: The Holocaust in the Hungarian press during 1942 / Laszlo Karsai; title: Czechoslovakia and the Allied declaration of December 17, 1942 / Jan Láníček; title: 1942 : what was known down under, at the edge of the Jewish diaspora? / Suzanne D. Rutland; title: The Red Cross and the Holocaust : the year 1942 as a turning point for the humanitarians? / Gerald Steinacher; title: Pius XII, the Vatican, and the moral imperative to do good : Christmas 1942 / Paul O'Shea; title: The November 23, 1942, Communiqué by the Jewish Agency executive : a renewed examination / Dina Porat; title: What did the World Jewish Congress know about the fate of European Jewry at the end of 1942? Sources and interpretation / Zohar Segev.