THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion

This month's buddy read is any book of your choice that covers the Holocaust or aspects of the Holocaust during WW2.

I commend you for recommending this very difficult topic to tackle for the group.

This is a topic that is very close to my heart and I am going to make a somewhat out-of-the-box recommendation of a book that impacted me very deeply.

It is a book, not about the nuts and bolts of the Nazi obsession with eradicating the Jewish people (among others), but instead, it is about the spirit of the victims of persecution.

These short stories (only a few pages each) demonstrate that while the body may be weak and fragile, the spirit can still soar...

Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust

Hi Will, thanks for your post and the recommendation of the book; Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, I am sure a few members within the group will check this book out.


Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust by Yaffa Eliach

If I was to join the read would To the Bitter End. the Diaries 42-45 by Victor Klemperer be OK? Not keen to purchase any more books nor reread. This seems to the only fit I have at the moment.

To the Bitter End. the Diaries 42-45

My choice:

Auschwitz

I'm admittedly biased since I'm recommending "The Pharmacist of Auschwitz: The Untold Story'" a biography of the death camp's chief pharmacist, Victor Capesius. The book was released last month and is written by my wife, Patricia Posner. She has worked with me on 12 of my own books, including a 1986 biography of the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele ("Mengele"); A 1991 book of interviews with the sons and daughters of top Nazis, "Hitler's Children;" and a 2015 book, "God Bankers: a History of Money and Power at the Vatican," that showed how the Vatican Bank invested secretly during World War II in Italian and German insurance companies and then reaped outsized profits as a result of those companies escheating the life insurance policies of Jews sent to the death camps.

If you aren't quite sure that my recommendation as Patricia's husband is a good one, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that "The Pharmacist of Auschwitz" has received some rave reviews.

Damien Lewis, author of "The Nazi Hunters," said: "Shocking. Revelatory. Compelling. A truly authentic and riveting read. A milestone in World War II and Holocaust history."

Andrew Roberts, author of "The Storm of War," says: "A harrowing, beautifully written and extremely well-researched account of a little-known aspect of the Holocaust. Patricia Posner's fine prose style grips from page one, and the horror will stay with you long after you finish the book."

4triplezed wrote: "If I was to join the read would To the Bitter End. the Diaries 42-45 by Victor Klemperer be OK? Not keen to purchase any more books nor reread. This seems to the only fit I have at the moment.

[b..."

That's a fine book for the theme read, please join in :)

Michal wrote: "My choice:

Auschwitz"

An excellent choice Michal! I found it to be a compelling account.

Hi Gerald, I am sure your wife's book will be of great interest to a number of members in the group. Thanks for posting the details

The Pharmacist of Auschwitz: The Untold Story by Patricia Posner

My absolute favorite Holocaust book is

"Still Alive", by Ruth Klueger (engl. spelling: Kluger). Here is the link to this book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

And here is the link to my review of this book:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Excellent recommendation Lilo and thanks for sharing your great review!

I couldn't in all honesty describe If This Is a Man / The Truce by Primo Levi as a favourite book. It's too harrowing for that. However, it manages to be uplifting by speaking to the human spirit in the most dreadful of circumstances.

A.P. wrote: "I couldn't in all honesty describe If This Is a Man / The Truce by Primo Levi as a favourite book. It's too harrowing for that. However, it manages to be uplifting by speaking to the hu..."

I have that and may read it instead of Victor Klemperer.

Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49 by David Cesarani

I'd like to call dibs on the big guy, but if people don't have a alternative, there is also

by Yisrael Gutman

I'll come in with KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps if that's ok

Alas, I just read Primo Levi's magnificent "The Periodic Table." But, if it counts, I'm going to try W.G. Sebald's "Austerlitz".

My book is THE NAZI HUNTERS by Andrew Nagorski.

To me it was an important and heralding moment in history when Eisenhower, after learning his troops had control of a concentration camp, gave instructions to take all the pictures they possibly could because someday they'll say it never happened.

Yes, that's an excellent point; they even made a film to document some of the atrocities they encountered in the liberation of the
camps.

WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC IMAGES (use discretion when viewing)

https://youtu.be/Sh3uqAasdKU

Excellent point Howard and great link Will, thanks for both posts.

I'm going to read Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor

Regina wrote: "I'm going to read Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor"

William Denson has a prominent role in my book. He's an interesting man.

A few years ago I read The Murder of the Jews in Latvia 1941 -1945. The Murder of the Jews in Latvia 1941-1945. [book:The Murder of the Jews in Latvia 1941-1945

I have also in the past read The Pink Triangle, The Nazi war against homosexuals by Richard Plant. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals

Both give a detailed history & context of a specific area of the Holocaust. I currently don't have a Holocaust book on my yet to read list.

For this topic I would recommend this book:
I read this a few years ago, and this is really interesting (if I can use this word in this).

Howard wrote: "To me it was an important and heralding moment in history when Eisenhower, after learning his troops had control of a concentration camp, gave instructions to take all the pictures they possibly co..."

Similarly when the British liberated Belsen they insisted not only on the local population taking tours but as many servicement as possible (my grandfather included) seeing what had gone on there. Footage taken there helped inform Sidney Bernstein's film German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, sadly not completed at the time.

And still there are people who claim it never happened?

Derek wrote: "Howard wrote: "To me it was an important and heralding moment in history when Eisenhower, after learning his troops had control of a concentration camp, gave instructions to take all the pictures t..."

Bernstein's film was recently completed by a team from the Imperial War Museum - Channel 4 in the UK showed a documentary on it for Holocaust Memorial Day (it's available on All4 for UK viewers with strong stomachs).
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015...
http://hmd.org.uk/news/night-will-fal...

My book for this buddy read is going to be Laurence Rees' latest book which I hope to start today:

The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees

In tribute to one of the leading scholars of the Holocaust I'm going to read an old book, Martin Gilbert's first book on the topic, Final Journey: Holocaust: The Fate Of The Jews In Nazi Europe from 1979. Hoping to have time to get to Laurence Rees later in the month.

The first book that I read on the Holocaust was this massive volume by Martin Gilbert:

The Holocaust, The Jewish Tragedy by Martin Gilbert

Yes a classic of its kind, one of the go to books until more recent times with a cornucopia of general histories. Reading Final Journey reminds me how well Gilbert recounts his tale, sticking to the facts and focussing on the victim's experience.
Chapter one is the story of the experience of Jews in German up to 1939. I was struck by the story of the expulsion of Polish born Jews in 1939. One recounted "We were only allowed to take 10 marks; any excess was confiscated. That was German law; we were told: “You didn’t have more than that when you arrived in Germany, and you can’t take any more away with you now.”"

Derek wrote: "And still there are people who claim it never happened?."

the slippery stance of negotialism focusses on disputing the number of victims and foremost the genocidal intention, citing 'regular' causes known from POW situations such as epidemic diseases in unsanitary circumstances.

We find the same counterlogic in the debate surrounding the Armenian genocide of the previous war : nitpick the details to question the whole.

4triplezed wrote: "If I was to join the read would To the Bitter End. the Diaries 42-45 by Victor Klemperer be OK? Not keen to purchase any more books nor reread. This seems to the only fit I have at the moment.

To the Bitter End. the Diaries 42-45

[b..."

I am 25 pages in and know that I will not finish this by the end of the month. Very much a "dip into" style book. What gets me so far is the......how do I put it?........tedious fear that Victor Klemperer was living in. He writes about what is happening on a day by day basis in what I don't think is particularly narrative in style. He almost trudges through the first three months of 1942 waiting for things to happen. On the front cover of my book Amos Elon of the NY Times writes 'The best written, most evocative, most observant record of daily life in the Third Reich.' I suppose I would have to read that comment in the perspective of his review but I am unable to see that Klemperer and his people were living a "normal Third Reich" daily life at this point. The odd acquaintance is mentioned who has headed of to a concentration camp, how was that daily life for the masses of Germans who hardly had contact with the Jewish peoples?

These are two books I read a while ago: 'The Good Old Days" The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders' by Ernst Klee provides a very different perspective, much taken from diaries of the perpetrators. and, Michael Burleigh's 'Death and Deliverance: Euthanasia In Germany 1900 -1945. which sets the historical background for policies that would lead to the final solution, or how educated men get from A to B to C. I highly recommend both.

I'd like to recommend "Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women" by Sarah Helm. It is a huge, riveting account of this lesser-known camp that is largely based on interviews and archival research. In it, Helm describes every aspect of the camp's history, painting a picture of the surrounding spa community that had fallen on hard times, the construction of the camp and recruitment of workers, the camp's hierarchy, the many types of prisoners and punishments, and the growth and decline of the camp up until the war's end. It is a meticulously researched, chilling work that simply took my breath away.

Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women

Some good recommendations there. Chapter 2 of Final Journey describes the expulsion of Jews after the beginning of WW2. Most of the chapter is a vivid account of an awful journey from Hamburg to Lublin by S Mogilewer. "In January 1940, as the chaos of moving so many people began to subside, a memorandum prepared by the General Government expressed it's 'willingness' to receive a million Jews within its borders ... once Germany had been victorious in Europe, the memorandum declared, the Jews could be sent elsewhere, 'possibly to Madagascar ', to make room for German settlers, while all 'superfluous Poles' could be sent to Siberia."

Just to throw it in, my older book Occupation and Insurgency details the war in the east, Holocaust and has interviews with SS officers.

Made my way as far as 1936 in the narrative of ; the early camps have been described and, on the whole, have been closed down while new "permament" camps at Saschenhausen and Buchenwald are joining Dachau and Lichtenburg. The official tone is still repression and full scale murder has not yet crept into the camps. Thankfully the inmates can still apply some sardonic humour to their situation; they counter Himmler's speech "There is a path to freedom. It's milestones are: obedience, diligence, honesty, orderliness, cleanliness, sobriety, truthfulness, readiness to make sacrifices, and love of the Fatherland." with the more accurate "There is a path to the SS.It's milestones are: stupidity, impudence, mendacity, boasting, shirking, cruelty, injustice, hypocrisy, and love of booze."

I interviewed Gerhard Klopfer, Karl Wolff among many others. Look them up.

Will try and get hold of that Colin. Does KL give any breakdown of camp occupants at that time by category e.g. Jewish, communist etc?

At this point everyone's been incarcerated as a political prisoner (actual or otherwise) so there's been no distinction made.

I'm dying to read Klemperer's diary. Looking forward to the review. 4triplezed wrote: "If I was to join the read would To the Bitter End. the Diaries 42-45 by Victor Klemperer be OK? Not keen to purchase any more books nor reread. This seems to the only fit I have at the moment.

[b..."

I agree; this is a must-read book. Chilling to its core and a microscopic view of evil. Morgiana wrote: "For this topic I would recommend this book:
I read this a few years ago, and this is really interesting (if I can use this word in this)."

That sounds very powerful.

Final Journey: Holocaust: The Fate Of The Jews In Nazi Europe chapter three is another vignette on a topic I hadn't heard much about, the Romanian treatment of the Jews. Romania saw Marshall Antonescu come to power in a coup in 1940, at the head of a rabidly antisemitic regime.
Martin Gilbert focusses in on the Romanian city of Jassy, recording the travails of their Jewish population through the centuries. "On the evening of 28 June 1941, Rumanian police, helped by local citizens, rampaged through the streets of Jassy, murdering several hundred Jews at random and arresting over 6,000 more." As with previous chapters, Gilbert uses extended first person testimonies describing the extended journeys to the East that ensued, with Jews being transported in terrible conditions to Romanian run concentration camps. Of more than 185,000 Jews deported, more than 100,000 were killed at camps such as Bogdanowka, Dumanowka and Atmicetka.
Although almost half of Rumania's pre-war Jews were killed, Germans still saw the policy as a failure. The Rumanian government cunningly began to treat Jews better from mid 1943 as Marshal Antonescu foresaw Germany's defeat, and following Soviet invasion in 1944 the country changed sides.

Bevan wrote: "That sounds very powerful.

Final Journey: Holocaust: The Fate Of The Jews In Nazi Europe chapter three is another vignette on a topic I hadn't heard much about, the Romanian treatme..."

Interesting information Bevan, thank for posting the details.

Laurence Rees mentions the Haavara Agreement in his book; The Holocaust. Under this agreement German Jews could leave Germany and retain some of their wealth by transferring their assets to purchase German manufactured goods for export to Palestine, thus salvaging some part of their personal wealth during emigration. Under German Law at the time German Jews could not leave the country with substantial assets, forcing them to leave their wealth in Germany or stay.

The Haavara Agreement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara...

Reading this by Christopher R. Browning

Should be a very interesting book Pamela, keep us all posted on your progress and thoughts.

Pamela wrote: "Reading this by Christopher R. Browning"

Pamela, have you read Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust ? It would be useful as a tool of comparison for Browning ?

Look forward to hearing about this, very important look at the perpetrators. Interestingly Daniel Goldhagen used the same evidence to come up with Hitler's Willing Executioners.

Didn't see your comment Dimitri! I've read Goldhagens book, ideologically driven based on selective use of evidence, bad history in my opinion.