Sources for Studying the Holocaust: A Guide ed. by Paul R. Bartrop (review)

Reviewed by: Sources for Studying the Holocaust: A Guide ed. by Paul R. Bartrop Dallas Michelbacher Sources for Studying the Holocaust: A Guide. Edited by Paul R. Bartrop. London: Routledge, 2023. Pp. xi + 270. Paper 34. 36. ISBN 9781032164502. Paul Bartrop's edited volume Sources for Studying the Holocaust: A Guide is an introduction to the types of sources that are utilized by historians studying the Holocaust and a guide to criticism and use of those sources. The volume divides these sources into three categories: the "personal" (i. e. , ego documents, such as diaries and letters, as well as oral testimonies), the "public" (i. e. , print media, propaganda, official documents, and memorial displays), and the "popular" (i. e. , mass media, such as film and literature). These categorizations are somewhat arbitrary (propaganda leaflets and newspapers are intended to be "popular, " while films are certainly "public"), but they provide a more-or-less logical framework for approaching criticism of the various types of sources discussed in the volume. The volume analyzes how the sources in each of these categories allow for the study of the Holocaust on multiple levels—individual, social, political, etc. —and from diverse methodological and disciplinary approaches, although the principal focus remains on historical study. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific type of source, providing a general description of that type of material, a brief historiographic review, examples of Holocaust- related sources of that type, an explanation of the value of that type of source for historians of the Holocaust, and an analysis of the pros and cons of using the sources in question. The authors explore both the direct evidentiary value of the sources in question and their illustrative value within a historical narrative, thus providing the reader with a basic "how-to" guide for source criticism and a general framework for utilizing those sources in their own research and writing. The volume also includes discussions of certain unique features of these sources, such as language, and how these features should be factored into interpretations of those sources; for example, the chapter concerning the use of Yiddish documents includes an explanation of the history and function of Yiddish within European Jewish communities to properly End Page 355 contextualize the unique value of these documents, emphasizing the importance of not only textual analysis but also metatextual analysis and cultural understanding of primary sources. As is generally the case with edited volumes, the relative strength of the writing and analysis can be uneven from one chapter to the next. The chapter on photography is a noteworthy strong point of the volume. Photography of the Holocaust has become perhaps the most salient area of historical analysis in recent years, both in terms of the discovery of new source material (such as the Sobibor album) and new publications (such as Valerie Hebert's recent book Framing the Holocaust). The chapter uses several well-known examples, such as the Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph, and explains how understanding the motivations behind the creation of these photographs is essential to properly appreciating their evidentiary value. While the interpretive framework outlined in the chapter is relatively basic, the explanation of the broader context into which these sources must be placed elevates it above a simple how-to manual. The chapters that do not feature many examples of the sources being analyzed are a relative weakness of the volume. For example, the chapter on church documents, which provides an otherwise helpful explanation of the context surrounding the role of the church during the Holocaust, does not present much actual source material from church archives. It could have been useful for the reader to see the interpretive framework outlined in the text put into practice. From the perspective of the likely intended audience—undergraduates and newer graduate students—the abstract discussion of the background of these sources is useful, but without a practical demonstration of the author's intended interpretive methods, it is less likely to have substantial instructive value than the aforementioned chapter on photography, in which the author walks the reader through the process of interrogating sources more directly. The absence of such discussion is less problematic in other cases—such as the chapter on Yiddish. . .