webpage updated 2/29/2012

Author(s)

Levin Nora

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Edition

Orig. Ed 1990

Krieger #

Pages

ISBN #

Cloth/Paper

U.S. Dollars

222232

384

0-89464-223-5

P

$35.75

Description

Reviews

Covered here are the events involved in the preparation and implementation of the planned annihilation of Europe's Jews by the Nazis. Part I is a compact history of preparatory steps leading to the decision to destroy the Jews physically, including Western anti-Semitic practices and doctrines, the collapse of the Weimar Republic leading to the rise of Nazism and Hitler's rise to power, the early anti-Jewish laws and the crucial events of 1938, including Kristallnacht. The text also deals with the German invasion of Russia and the mass executions of Jews by mobile killing units that accompanied the army, forced ghettoization of Jews in German-occupied Europe, Jewish resistance efforts, deportations from western, central, and southeastern Europe, and rescue efforts and failures. Part II includes 100 readings that document and elucidate these events and include first-hand testimony, official Nazi and Allied documents, eyewitness accounts, and diary and memoir excerpts.

"This pairing of text with perfectly chosen readings is an outstanding approach, gathering for the reader the fruits of many hundreds of sources. (The lengthy list of suggested readings is alone worth the price of the book.)...Nora Levin, who unfortunately died before the book went to press, has made a valuable contribution. -- West Coast Review