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Never Again: The History of the Holocaust
Martin Gilbert is one of the world's pre-eminent historians of the Holocaust. Representing 40 years of research that Gilbert began in Poland in 1959, this comprehensive, illustrated volume traces the history of the Jewish people in Europe before, during, and after the Holocaust. Gilbert brilliantly blends this great swath of history with fresh, detailed accounts of individual the rise of Nazism in Germany, the Jewish children who found refuge in Britain, the rejected refugees of the U.S.S. St Louis, the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, the stories of Anne Frank, Oscar Schindler, and the children of Izieu, as well as the reflections of survivors today. Never Again paints a deeply personal and cultural portrait of the Holocaust. Gilbert's sharp historical knowledge makes this work on the Holocaust enormously informative and tangibly real.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
74 people are currently reading
278 people want to read
About the author
Martin Gilbert
249 books417 followersThe official biographer of Winston Churchill and a leading historian on the Twentieth Century, Sir Martin Gilbert was a scholar and an historian who, though his 88 books, has shown there is such a thing as “true history”
Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.”
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Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.”
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 10, 2018
The Final Solution, racial cleansing, genocide, Shoah, the Holocaust.....those words will forever represent one of the most vile and far-reaching actions that humans have ever committed. The basis for the Nazi philosophy of Aryan supremacy turned Europe into a slaughterhouse into which the Jewish people were literally engulfed in the fires of hatred.
The noted historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, did 40 years of research to put together a photographic and textual picture of this horror. He begins with the life of the Jews before WWII when there were incidents that were precursors to the Holocaust and then turns his attention to the full blown terror that followed. He provides a mixture of letters, pictures, poems, etc. from those who died in the death camps and those who survived along with copies of Nazi documents addressing the Final Solution. There are also maps of Nazi occupied Europe which show the population of Jews in a particular area, pre and post Holocaust. The numbers will chill the reader as they represent the 6 million in a more personal manner.
There is much more to say about this book but a review cannot do it justice. Highly recommended.
The noted historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, did 40 years of research to put together a photographic and textual picture of this horror. He begins with the life of the Jews before WWII when there were incidents that were precursors to the Holocaust and then turns his attention to the full blown terror that followed. He provides a mixture of letters, pictures, poems, etc. from those who died in the death camps and those who survived along with copies of Nazi documents addressing the Final Solution. There are also maps of Nazi occupied Europe which show the population of Jews in a particular area, pre and post Holocaust. The numbers will chill the reader as they represent the 6 million in a more personal manner.
There is much more to say about this book but a review cannot do it justice. Highly recommended.
August 25, 2022
In this volume, including many photographs and artwork, Martin Gilbert charts the Nazi mass murder scheme, which they called the Final Solution,
which remains one of history's most despicable acts of inhumanity, callousness, murder and sadism. A new word had to be coined in the English language to describe it- genocide.
Gilbert begins by charting the background of European Jewry and the persecution they suffered.
Gilbert includes a chart of the pre-Second World War Jewish population of the countries in Europe from which Jews were to be murdered during the Holocaust.
They add up to almost 8 million.
Chapter Two charts the rise of Nazi Germany, and the pre-war persecution of the Jews by the Nazis.
It includes an analysis of the Nazi programme concerning the Jews which openly declared the aim of genocide against the Jews of Europe.
In September 1930, as German parliamentarians walked to the Reichstag for it's first session, in which the Nazi Party had it's first significant representation- 107 seats- crowds of Nazi youths cried out as the parliamentarians passed" "Germany wake. Death to the Jews".
This can easily be compared to the declaration of ""Jews! We have already dug your graves," by Hamas official Mushir al-Masri at a half-million strong rally of support for Hamas in Gaza's central square on Saturday, 15 December 2007.
Gilbert discusses the boycott of Jewish businesses by the Nazis, which one is chillingly reminded of when we see anti-Israel pressure groups launching boycotts of Israeli products and concerns today.
He charts the persecution, expulsion and book burning, the anti-Jewish laws passed at Nuremberg in 1935, and Jewish emigration from Germany, the four biggest destinations of refugees from Nazism before World War II, were the United States, Argentina, Britain and Palestine. The chapter covers the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and the 1938 pogroms against Jews across Germany and Austria, on 18 October 1938, known as Kristallnacht.
He also charts the Kindertransport, which one can study in detail in the following book: I came alone: The stories of the Kindertransports wherein more than nine thousand German and Austrian Jewish children- between the ages of three months and seventeen years- were brought to Britain after the Kristallnacht; the voyage of the St Louis, the ship carrying Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, which was turned back by the United States. An estimated 660 of the 930 Jewish refugees who were forced to return to Europe on the St Louis were murdered in the Holocaust; an article on those who helped Jews to escape Europe such as the Dutch woman Gertrude Wijsmuller and Portuguese diplomat Dr Aristides De Sousa Mendes.
Gilbert go's on to document the Jews who escaped from the Nazi death machine to fight alongside the Partisans across Eastern Europe.
He also has an article on the 20 to 30 000 survived the war in hiding. These 'hidden children' were those under the age of fourteen, many of them babies, whose parents managed to find someone- a non Jewish person or family, or a Christian institution- with whom they could live, without their Jewishness becoming known.
Books on more about this subject include Hidden Children
The article on 'Righteous Gentiles' is about the many thousand of non-Jews who risked- and in many cases lost- their own lives to save Jewish lives.
Chapter Seven discusses the Last Year of the War, which discusses Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1944, acts of individual defiance, Anne Frank in hiding, rescuers such as Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, the Death Marches, the Death Marches and the Fate of non-Jews such as the 231 800 Gypsies murdered by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945.
The article on the deportation centre at Drancy France, shows the identity card of Anny-Yolande Horowitz, together with her signature and fingerprint.
Anny-Yolande was born in Strasbourg on 2 June 1933 and deported to Auschwitz and murdered in September 1942, three months after her ninth birthday. The registration card, issued at Tours on 4 December 1940, notes that she is Jewish (juive) and that she is under police surveillance as a foreigner although Strasbourg, her birthplace was part of France when she was born.
Another photo of one of the 11 400 French Jewish children who were murdered is of Camille Himelfarb-Sarnacka, born in Paris on 10 June, 1940.
In 12942 she was arrested with her mother in front of the Goncourt metro station in Paris.
On 16 September 1942 she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there on on reaching the camp.
She was two years and three months old.
The last chapter deals with the Liberation of the Death Camps and some of the survivors such as children like Idel Levitan and Renja From, the homes found by survivors, the war crimes trials and holocaust memorials, the second generation and bearing witness, the lives of the children and grandchildren of holocaust survivors (most of whom live in Israel), and bearing witness.
The last article before the chronology and bibliography is the article 'Never Again' describing the meaning of the cry that Never Again would something like this be allowed to happen.
which remains one of history's most despicable acts of inhumanity, callousness, murder and sadism. A new word had to be coined in the English language to describe it- genocide.
Gilbert begins by charting the background of European Jewry and the persecution they suffered.
Gilbert includes a chart of the pre-Second World War Jewish population of the countries in Europe from which Jews were to be murdered during the Holocaust.
They add up to almost 8 million.
Chapter Two charts the rise of Nazi Germany, and the pre-war persecution of the Jews by the Nazis.
It includes an analysis of the Nazi programme concerning the Jews which openly declared the aim of genocide against the Jews of Europe.
In September 1930, as German parliamentarians walked to the Reichstag for it's first session, in which the Nazi Party had it's first significant representation- 107 seats- crowds of Nazi youths cried out as the parliamentarians passed" "Germany wake. Death to the Jews".
This can easily be compared to the declaration of ""Jews! We have already dug your graves," by Hamas official Mushir al-Masri at a half-million strong rally of support for Hamas in Gaza's central square on Saturday, 15 December 2007.
Gilbert discusses the boycott of Jewish businesses by the Nazis, which one is chillingly reminded of when we see anti-Israel pressure groups launching boycotts of Israeli products and concerns today.
He charts the persecution, expulsion and book burning, the anti-Jewish laws passed at Nuremberg in 1935, and Jewish emigration from Germany, the four biggest destinations of refugees from Nazism before World War II, were the United States, Argentina, Britain and Palestine. The chapter covers the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and the 1938 pogroms against Jews across Germany and Austria, on 18 October 1938, known as Kristallnacht.
He also charts the Kindertransport, which one can study in detail in the following book: I came alone: The stories of the Kindertransports wherein more than nine thousand German and Austrian Jewish children- between the ages of three months and seventeen years- were brought to Britain after the Kristallnacht; the voyage of the St Louis, the ship carrying Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, which was turned back by the United States. An estimated 660 of the 930 Jewish refugees who were forced to return to Europe on the St Louis were murdered in the Holocaust; an article on those who helped Jews to escape Europe such as the Dutch woman Gertrude Wijsmuller and Portuguese diplomat Dr Aristides De Sousa Mendes.
Gilbert go's on to document the Jews who escaped from the Nazi death machine to fight alongside the Partisans across Eastern Europe.
He also has an article on the 20 to 30 000 survived the war in hiding. These 'hidden children' were those under the age of fourteen, many of them babies, whose parents managed to find someone- a non Jewish person or family, or a Christian institution- with whom they could live, without their Jewishness becoming known.
Books on more about this subject include Hidden Children
The article on 'Righteous Gentiles' is about the many thousand of non-Jews who risked- and in many cases lost- their own lives to save Jewish lives.
Chapter Seven discusses the Last Year of the War, which discusses Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1944, acts of individual defiance, Anne Frank in hiding, rescuers such as Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, the Death Marches, the Death Marches and the Fate of non-Jews such as the 231 800 Gypsies murdered by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945.
The article on the deportation centre at Drancy France, shows the identity card of Anny-Yolande Horowitz, together with her signature and fingerprint.
Anny-Yolande was born in Strasbourg on 2 June 1933 and deported to Auschwitz and murdered in September 1942, three months after her ninth birthday. The registration card, issued at Tours on 4 December 1940, notes that she is Jewish (juive) and that she is under police surveillance as a foreigner although Strasbourg, her birthplace was part of France when she was born.
Another photo of one of the 11 400 French Jewish children who were murdered is of Camille Himelfarb-Sarnacka, born in Paris on 10 June, 1940.
In 12942 she was arrested with her mother in front of the Goncourt metro station in Paris.
On 16 September 1942 she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there on on reaching the camp.
She was two years and three months old.
The last chapter deals with the Liberation of the Death Camps and some of the survivors such as children like Idel Levitan and Renja From, the homes found by survivors, the war crimes trials and holocaust memorials, the second generation and bearing witness, the lives of the children and grandchildren of holocaust survivors (most of whom live in Israel), and bearing witness.
The last article before the chronology and bibliography is the article 'Never Again' describing the meaning of the cry that Never Again would something like this be allowed to happen.
September 10, 2017
Da uno dei maggiori studiosi dell'Olocausto, un ottimo manuale storico che, partendo dall'ascesa al potere di Adolf Hitler, documenta, con ricchezza di immagini, descrizioni e testimonianze, l'intera storia del genocidio del popolo ebraico.Comprende prende anche una breve cronologia con i principali eventi storici che hanno segnato quel periodo, e una ricca bibliografia.
Ottimo strumento per studio, approfondimento, consultazione.
Ottimo strumento per studio, approfondimento, consultazione.
May 18, 2019
When one of the world's most eminent historians takes on the single most amazing phenomenon of the century, the Holocaust, it gives one pause for thought. So here we have Sir Martin Gilbert, a noted Holocaust authority, writing masterfully about the events leading up to and including the systematic persecution, deportation and murder of the Jews of Europe. His stirring and singular narrative is regularly punctuated by a number of poignant and shocking eyewitness accounts of many who lived through those numbing events. The test is extremely approachable and easy to read, so that the non-historian can appreciate the breadth and scope of his recounting of the events during the 12-year reign of terror levied by the National Socialists in Nazi Germany.
His approach is chronological, much like that employed in his best-selling three volume series on the 20th century. While he relies heavily on established secondary sources for his documentation, the power of his prose and his well-organized approach makes this an entertaining and educational tome to venture into. Although nowhere near as comprehensive as some other tomes such as Klaus Fischer's "History Of An Obsession", he does trace the centuries' long tradition of anti-Semitism culminating in the official state sanctioned approach codified in the institutionalized Nuremberg laws. In all this, Gilbert brilliantly employs survivor's recollections to paint the atrocities in the hues and colors of real human beings, ordinary and identifiable individuals caught in the insanity of the Third Reich. Furthermore, he pursues their individual identities and humanity by giving the reader information on the postwar futures of these people.
So much has been written about the Holocaust that it is difficult to imagine much new or novel to arise some fifty years after the end of the war. Yet the stage always remains open for the unusual display of finely crafted historical perspectives and brilliantly executed prose. The brilliance in this dazzling book is, as Oscar Schindler would have said, in the presentation. Although I have read a number of other books about these times and events that were more detailed, more graphic, or more comprehensive, this is without a doubt the single most impressive, cohesive, and authoritative volume I have read to date regarding the Holocaust in its enormity, and placed in an understandable and comprehensible context. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in owning the single best one-volume book summarizing and explaining the realities of the Holocaust.
His approach is chronological, much like that employed in his best-selling three volume series on the 20th century. While he relies heavily on established secondary sources for his documentation, the power of his prose and his well-organized approach makes this an entertaining and educational tome to venture into. Although nowhere near as comprehensive as some other tomes such as Klaus Fischer's "History Of An Obsession", he does trace the centuries' long tradition of anti-Semitism culminating in the official state sanctioned approach codified in the institutionalized Nuremberg laws. In all this, Gilbert brilliantly employs survivor's recollections to paint the atrocities in the hues and colors of real human beings, ordinary and identifiable individuals caught in the insanity of the Third Reich. Furthermore, he pursues their individual identities and humanity by giving the reader information on the postwar futures of these people.
So much has been written about the Holocaust that it is difficult to imagine much new or novel to arise some fifty years after the end of the war. Yet the stage always remains open for the unusual display of finely crafted historical perspectives and brilliantly executed prose. The brilliance in this dazzling book is, as Oscar Schindler would have said, in the presentation. Although I have read a number of other books about these times and events that were more detailed, more graphic, or more comprehensive, this is without a doubt the single most impressive, cohesive, and authoritative volume I have read to date regarding the Holocaust in its enormity, and placed in an understandable and comprehensible context. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in owning the single best one-volume book summarizing and explaining the realities of the Holocaust.
March 20, 2019
This oversize book is an excellent introduction to the Holocaust or Shoah and explores its many varied aspects in brief. It does so by presenting first person accounts from written testimony found in diaries, interviews and reports from victims, survivors and participants. The volume contains many illustrations gathered by Sir Martin Gilbert and his team as well as drawings by eyewitnesses. It is well worth reading by anyone interested in just beginning to learn about this terrible crime against humanity and by those who have studied it in depth.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 12, 2021
This is a bleak book to read. Beginning with an overview of European Jewry in the centuries before Hitler took power, the book goes on to document the rise of anti-Jewish feelings and actions before, during and after the war. Each two-page layout focuses on an aspect of those years using primary sources —. Jewish voices in memories, in contemporaneous diaries and in military reports. Photos also appear in each spread. The text itself describes the topic of the two pages in clear succinct manner.
Truly, never again.
Truly, never again.
February 25, 2023
Moving and Personal
At first read, Gilbert's book seemed to me a bit disjointed, as it appears to deal with somewhat disparate topic. In the course of reading, I felts that a unified picture began to emerge - one that was very personal and extremely moving. The diary excerpts and other first-person accounts by both victims and witnesses, along with extensive photographic materials, make 'Never Again' a unique and important treatise.
At first read, Gilbert's book seemed to me a bit disjointed, as it appears to deal with somewhat disparate topic. In the course of reading, I felts that a unified picture began to emerge - one that was very personal and extremely moving. The diary excerpts and other first-person accounts by both victims and witnesses, along with extensive photographic materials, make 'Never Again' a unique and important treatise.
Read
August 10, 2020Not nearly as comprehensive as most of his books are. This would be a good one to start with for the person beginning his study of Holocaust but not if you are already quite knowledgeable of it.
August 3, 2023
A horrifying time in the history of this world.
October 21, 2013
I have read many books about the Holocaust and what is not easy to to understand is how this could have happened. I keep looking for the answers. Never Again is written in a unique format. Martin Gilbert examines millstones, both small and large, in the history of this time period. He tells the story in pictures and text of each milestone. Putting what seems to be a minor incident in the contexts of others "minor" incidents, portrays how this horror happened and can happen again. In a crisis and in order to maintain power, the government points blame at one sect of the population....the government controls the media, who in turn back up everything the government says as truth...if a media outlet tells a different tale then they are denounced and destroyed....finally a large portion of the population become dependent upon the government for the necessities of life. So when a dependent population hear from its government and the media about one part of the population being evil, it is considered to be truth. Hatred begets evil and history has a way of repeating itself unless it is recognized.
December 7, 2016
I have blogged about his at http://gertsamtkunstwerk.typepad.co.u...
Eminent 20th Century historian leads a group from his MA in Holocaust Studies on a two week journey through Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and, especially, Poland. They visit sites of Holocaust outrages and places where large numbers of Jewish people lived before World War II. the book contains the readings he shared with the group - testimonials of victims and survivors, and to some extent onlookers and perpetrators.
Sentence structure and writing style make it easy to read, but the content and substance is difficult, so I limited myself to 20-30 minutes an evening, a short chapter or half of a long one.
Eminent 20th Century historian leads a group from his MA in Holocaust Studies on a two week journey through Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and, especially, Poland. They visit sites of Holocaust outrages and places where large numbers of Jewish people lived before World War II. the book contains the readings he shared with the group - testimonials of victims and survivors, and to some extent onlookers and perpetrators.
Sentence structure and writing style make it easy to read, but the content and substance is difficult, so I limited myself to 20-30 minutes an evening, a short chapter or half of a long one.
November 3, 2013
Gilbert's book serves more as a landscape image of the Holocaust rather than an in depth history of events. He covers as much ground as possible in 180 pages, touching on many stories and events that I was not aware of. "Never Again" is filled with hundreds of photographs that are, for the most part, tasteful and informative. This is more of a primer than his other scholarly works, but still packs a lot of emotional impact.
November 25, 2015
What an exceptional book about the detailed history of Jews persecuted, enslaved, depoted in shallow of the death train, mercilessly tortured and murder by the German government under Hilter's leadership. The racist attrocities carried against the Jews are an extreme violation to human rights. Jews really experienced great suffering but how could God Almighty allow such events to be carried against people. Overall it was a great book to read.
January 19, 2016
How could anyone recommend this book
Yet at the same time how could you not recommend it. A journey through a landscape empty of the people who should be there. I didn't learn much more than I already knew but it really hit home in an emotional way. All those villages that had thriving Jewish communities, learning their fate and then the visits to the camps.
Yet at the same time how could you not recommend it. A journey through a landscape empty of the people who should be there. I didn't learn much more than I already knew but it really hit home in an emotional way. All those villages that had thriving Jewish communities, learning their fate and then the visits to the camps.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews