Marion Kaplans Between Dignity and Despair Essay

Marion Kaplans Between Dignity and Despair - Essay Example Above all, Marion A Kaplan has been able to demonstrate as to how the overall family experiences transformed due to marginalization and restrictions imposed on Jewish community. This book is academically critical as it narrates the story of common Jews who were part of the community before the rise of Hitler to the power. Marion A Kaplan offered a detailed account of changes in the social attitudes of common Germans when Hitler assumed the power. Marion attempted to illustrate the historical account of how ordinary Jews suffered during the period immediately preceding the war. She has specially been able to portray the experiences of women and how the family experiences changed during that era. Marion is known for her work on the feminist movement and extensive work on detailing the day to day lives of Jews during Imperial Germany. She has been able to combine the history of ordinary Jews with that of the gender studies with focus on women. The theme of this book is to present the Jewish history from the point of view of individuals- women specially and is based upon an extensive account of personal memoirs as well as testimonies of women who lived during that era. There has been extensive historical coverage of how the Jews survived under these conditions however; Marion’s account is more rigorous as it offered a unique and different perspective to this historical period. Until this work, Jewish history was not seen particularly from this perspective and thus this book is significant milestone towards contributing the academic literature on this subject. Marion has been able to demonstrate as to how the psychological, social as well as physical isolation of the German Jews further deteriorated their spirit and marginalized them in same society where they were considered as equal citizens. The use of legislations to actually undermine the social, economic as well as legal standing of the Jews in the country was widely used against them. These actions