ABSTRACT
The problems involved in recording the history of the Jewish people during World War II are quite different from the problems in the overall history of that war. The main topics of research on the Holocaust, therefore relate to the sufferings of the Jewish population and the struggle for life. Historians are continually drawn to the issue of antisemitism, perhaps the most vexing case of mass prejudice in human history. Only a few areas remain incompletely explained by the large number of works on the role the Final Solution played in Nazi theory and practice. The actions - or inactions, as the case may be - of countries and institutions that could have proffered assistance to Jews has become a major field of Holocaust historiography. There is also a growing scholarly interest in the sensitive and complex question of what local non-Jews could have or should have done to aid their Jewish neighbors.
