What do different forms of anti-Semitic violence during World War II teach us about the comparative study of political violence? In this article, we review three recent political science books about the perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence, the responses of their Jewish victims, and the rescue efforts that helped European Jews evade violence. These books demonstrate promising theoretical, empirical, and methodological uses for the rich historical record about the Holocaust. We use these studies to highlight the methodological innovations that they advance, the blurry theoretical boundaries between selective and collective forms of mass violence, and the possibility of agentive action by perpetrators, victims, and rescuers alike. We conclude by highlighting the social-psychology of genocidal violence and the legacies of these episodes as areas for future inquiry.

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6 For example, Charles H. Martin observes that "even before the CRC officially disbanded in 1956, the Genocide Petition had faded from public consciousness," till it "experienced a brief though less successful [than the Genocide Convention] renaissance" during the 1960s. Charles H. Martin, "Internationalizing 'The American Dilemma': The Civil Rights Congress and the 1951 Genocide Petition to the United Nations,"