Wolfgang Seibel, “Persecution and Rescue: The Politics of the Final Solution in France, 1940-1944” (U Michigan Press, 2017)

New Books in Sociology · Jan 9, 2018 · 1h 2m

In his recent book, Persecution and Rescue: The Politics of the Final Solution in France, 1940-1944 (University of Michigan Press, 2017). Wolfgang Seibel explores the factors that shaped the Holocaust in wartime France. Eschewing the recent emphasis on ideology, Seibel offers a more administrative-science-based analysis, arguing that the fate of the Jews both their persecution and rescue was the result of different agencies pursuing competing aims within the French Power-Sharing Administration. Whether it was the Vichy regimes efforts to preserve autonomy from German interference, or the SS’s…