A Holocaust Reader

By Lucy S. Dawidowicz

Book Overview

An unflinching insight into the lives of those who experienced the Holocaust.

As the Nazis rose to power, all over Europe, Jews conspired against their persecutors to keep an historical and documentary record. Some records were buried underground; others were hidden in secure and protected places; still others were transmitted to trustworthy non-Jews.

Collected here, in this invaluable work of scholarship, are more than sixty fully-annotated, primary source documents. Selected from both private papers, including hidden archives, and official records, these documents chart the course of the Holocaust and support the author's monumental War Against the Jews: 1933-1945.

All the documents, but one, are contemporary with the events they describe; most appear in English for the first time translated from German, Yiddish, Polish, French, and Hebrew; all are collected and authenticated by Dawidowicz.

Together, this combination of petitions, speeches, legislation and decrees, field reports and secret orders, personal diaries, songs from the ghettoes, and Jewish records of the Holocaust fills out and illustrates the historical narrative of the Holocaust with immediacy and power.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874412366
• ISBN13: 9780874412369
• Release Date: June 1976
• Publisher: Behrman House Publishing
• Length: 397 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Primary Source, Good for historical research

This book was expertly compiled from primary source documents concerning Jews, Nazis, and the Holocaust. The types of documents range from personal accounts to govt. papers. There is a very wide variety of types and subject matter. The reading level varies from piece to piece. This book is good for historical research, termpapers, and documentation. I highly recommend this book, but not to read straight through just for fun.

A collection of primary-source documents about the Holocaust

This collection of documents has allowed me and my high-school history students to explore the record of Nazi atrocities, thanks to the author's insightful editorial comments. Part One - "The Final Solution" deals with the Nazis' plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe, including pieces of Nazi legislation, minutes from meetings, and various orders. Part Two - "The Holocaust" - presents a Jewish perspective of life in Germany from 1933-1939, of the ghettos in eastern Europe, and the ordeals of deportation. I have yet to find a finer book in terms of providing a succinct collection of Holocaust-related documents. It has worked well for me and my students in collaboration with reading Raul Hilberg's _The Destruction of the European Jews_.