By examining the works of 2 authors, Jean Amery, an atheist, and Richard Rubenstein, a rabbi, Rumscheidt rejects monocausal explanations of the Holocaust and presents the stark totalitarian reality of the unbelievable. He discovers that those responsible for the Holocaust appealed to their own interpretations of religion and science for justification of the ruthless, self-perpetuating system that created superfluous populations only to rid itself of them.