An exploration of the most commonly asked questions about the Holocaust challenges misconceptions and discusses how no single theory fully explains the tragedy, drawing on a wealth of scholarly research and experience to offer new insights.

Why another book on the Holocaust? -- Targets : Why the Jews? Antimsemitism ; Emancipation and backlash -- Attackers : Why the Germans? Nation and Volk ; Hitler's opportunity -- Escalation : Why murder? From Aryanization to atrocity ; Gentile and Jewish responses -- Annihilation : Why this swift and sweeping? From bullets to gas ; Perpetrators : the "generation without limits" ; Enslavement -- Victims : Why didn't more Jews fight back more often? Compliance and resistance ; The world of the camps -- Homelands : Why did survival rates diverge? Varieties of behavior ; The case of Poland -- Onlookers : Why such limited help from outside? Prewar evasions ; Wartime priorities -- Aftermath : What legacies, what lessons? Return, resettlement, retribution, and restitution ; Memory, myths, and meanings.