Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Driven by thirst after just arriving at Auschwitz, told he can’t even break off an icicle to suck, Primo Levi asks, “Why?” A guard answers, “There is no ‘why’ here.” Why did this happen? Why did the Holocaust happen? Why do other genocides continue to happen? Eric D. Weitz, in his book A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation, suggests a nation’s attempt to create a utopian society leads to genocide. His answer to this unanswerable, almost unaskable question—why—is courageous and fruitful.
Beth Aviv Greenbaum (Wed,) studied this question.