final analysis.

I have finally finished my book! It took a while to read and, as a result, I've accumulated a fine of $10.25 on my library card. I would like to combine this post with my post due on Feb. 24 because this is my final analysis of the book.

What was problematic was Lifton’s casting of doctors as major rather than minor actors in the Holocaust. Doctors were indeed crucial to the sterilization and euthanasia programs, and they were prominent at Auschwitz. Yet this is a highly selective set of examples from which to generalize. Even at Auschwitz, they were ultimately marginal to the extermination. Had doctors not participated in the killings, the gas chambers and crematoria would have operated no differently. Lifton’s focus grossly magnifies the doctors’ importance, leaving me, and other readers, with a fundamental misconception of the Holocaust. Although to us the doctors’ role in the extermination is rightly of great intellectual and moral significance, historically the Nazi doctors are but an interesting and troubling footnote. Without them, the central features of the Holocaust would have remained the same. The part played by doctors in other genocides, moreover, has been virtually nonexistent. Essentially, although I thought that the book was fascinating and I learned a lot, I felt disappointed when I put it down. Lifton failed in his self-proclaimed task to "uncover the psychological conditions conducive of evil." His model of genocide is flawed and his psychological theories seem to be based on the study of one narrow and highly unusual case. Nevertheless, I learned personal and intriguing information about Nazi doctors and got an insight into their lives. It was intellectually challenging and another great source about the Holocaust. 

WE MUST NEVER FORGET.