This book offers a new analysis of the Holocaust as a multiple trap, of its origins and its final stages, in which rescue seemed to be possible. Developing like a sort of a doomsday machine set in motion from all sides, the Jews found themselves between the hammer and various anvils. Each and every one of them worked according to the logic created by the Nazis, which dictated the behavior of third and fourth parties and of the relations between them, before and during the Holocaust. The interplay between the various parties contributed not only to the victims’ doom but was destined to prevent help at first and rescue later. These efforts proved mainly self defeating, while various legacies about them emerged during the Holocaust and are heatedly debated even today. The real nature of these legacies is uncovered here on the basis of newly opened archives worldwide.