On the Margins

Anton Weiss-Wendt is Head of Research at the Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Oslo, Norway.

• List of Tables, Acknowledgments, Preface, Studying Estonian Jewish History: A Professional and Personal Journey, 1. New in Town: Jews in Narva, 1874-1917, 2. Thanks to the Germans! Jewish Cultural Autonomy in Interwar Estonia, 3. The Soviet Occupation of Estonia in 1940-41 and the Jews, 4. Accidentally Jewish: Helmut Weiss and the Il(logic) of Political Violence in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia, 5. Ordinary People Facing the Holocaust: As Reflected in the Estonian Security Police Investigation Files, 1941-42, 6. The End Complete: The Destruction of Jews in Provincial Cities, 7. The Business of Survival: Baltic Oil Ltd. and Jewish Forced Labor Camps in Estonia, 8. Estonian Perpetrators of the Holocaust in the Annals of the Cold War: Prosecution of War Criminals in the Soviet Union, 1943-1987, 9. Why the Holocaust Does Not Matter to Estonians, Appendix: Primary Sources for Estonian Jewish History until 1941, Bibliography, Index

"What distinguishes this volume from other more traditional histories is the interconnectedness of the author and his personal context with his historical subject. Weiss-Wendt interweaves his own career trajectory and historical and social questions into the contemporary world of Estonia, the historiographical debates about the Final Solution in eastern Europe, and the roll of antisemitism in the history of Estonia and its collaboration with the German occupiers during the war. The result is a unique and compelling collection of essays that sometimes do not hold together, yet which if taken as a whole and read in the spirit for which they are intended, offer real insight and meaning into much neglected areas of Estonian, German, Soviet, and Jewish histories."