THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion

Members can discuss books and aspects of the Holocaust in this area.

One book that I found extremely interesting covering this horrendous subject was; "Auschwitz" by Laurence Rees.


by Laurence Rees

I'd second that.

Here's a recent offering I picked up this week:

Thanks Jim for the post on that book, much appreciated.

I have this on my TBR by Saul Friedlander

Geevee wrote: "I have this on my TBR [bookcover:The Years Of Extermination: Nazi Germany And The Jews 1939 1945] by Saul Friedlander"

Will it surprise you to learn that I have a copy that I am yet to read. Maybe a future buddy read?

This is the first book that I read on the subject and still one of the best books on the Holocaust around:

by Martin Gilbert

It wouldn't :) How many books we have between us that we could Buddy read - many I think (I know of)

We could pencil something in for say July.

Good suggestion!

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "This is the first book that I read on the subject and still one of the best books on the Holocaust around:

[bookcover:The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War] by..."

I've added this to my TBR based on your recommendation thanks.

It's a large volume Geevee so it will keep you busy reading and of course Martin Gilbert is an excellent writer and historian so I think you will find it a very good account.

This is one book that I have buried somewhere that I am yet to read:

by Lyn Smith
Description:
For the last twenty-five years Lyb Smith has been recording the experiences of Holocaust survivors for the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive. Now, in Forgotten Voice of the Holocaust she has used these and other interviews to piece together this powerful oral history of how the Nazi regime murdered over six million European Jews, as well as Communists, Poles, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Soviet Prisoners of War and much of the Sinti Roma (Gypsy) population.

Through the voices of over 100 contributors, the story is told of how pre-war life changed to one of persecution; of the rise in emigration, and of the creation of the ghettos. We learn first hand of how people started to realise that relatives and friends being sent 'East' were being sent to some kind of 'camp'. And of course, we also witness the unbelievable atrocities that were taking place.

From those who managed to avoid the horror of concentration and death camps like Belsen and Auschwitz there are evocative tales of being in hiding and active resistance to the Nazi regime. And whilst the horrific death marches and eventual liberation of the camps mark the end of the Nazi's attempted Final Solution, we see how the Holocaust doesn't conclude there. In the wake of the genocide millions struggled to rebuild their lives only to find the process of returning to 'normality' made all the more difficult by devastating family losses and complex feelings of guilt. For many of the contributors their interviews stand as the only time they have ever told their story to another living soul.

What is perhaps most surprising is that ultimately, their testimonies illustrate how even during the most harsh and degrading conditions, hope, the will to survive and the human spirit shines through.


'My parents were in despair because they heard that children were being taken. They tried for a while to hide me by pushing me into one of those handcarts and piling luggage on top of me. When they started searching the handcarts my father took me out. My mother took me with her into the rank where she was kneeling and wrapped me up in the coat she had been carrying and laid me in front of her as though I was a parcel.

The Germans would walk up to a rank and inspect it. And everyone they thought was too feeble to be worth keeping would be yanked out, usually being struck first across the face with these heavy batons that they carried. But it didn't happen to my mother. I don't know why.

Finally they ordered everyone to stand up and said we were going back to the ghetto. Of course I could not be a parcel now I was standing up. My mother put a coat over my head and other people had coats and piled them on top of that, and they pushed me on. I was a kind of walking parcel. They closed ranks behind me on the march back to the ghetto. We went back to our bare flat. And I remember my father sat on the stripped bed and wept. This is the only time I ever saw him cry and to cry... well to cry like that with ghastly, dry sobbing. I'll never forget that.'

This book I have heard a lot about and understand has received some very good reader reviews, has anyone here read it at all?

by Filip Muller
Description:
Filip Müller came to Auschwitz with one of the earliest transports from Slovakia in April 1942 and began working in the gassing installations and crematoria in May. He was still alive when the gassings ceased in November 1944. He saw millions come and disappear; by sheer luck he survived. Müller is neither a historian nor a psychologist; he is a source—one of the few prisoners who saw the Jewish people die and lived to tell about it. Eyewitness Auschwitz is one of the key documents of the Holocaust.

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Reviews:
"A shattering, centrally important testimony." — from the Foreword by Yehuda Bauer.

"A very detailed description of day-to-day life, if we can call it that, in Hell’s inmost circle...Having read other books of this kind, I had expected to read this one straight through. But no, Eyewitness Auschwitz is jammed with infernal information too terrible to be taken all at once." — Terrence Des Pres, (New Republic.)

"Riveting...It is a tale of unprecedented, incomparable horror. Profoundly, intensely painful; but it is essential reading." — Jewish Press Features.

I just finished reading byShlomo Venezia and while I found it difficult to read it was well worth the effort.

Sounds like a very interesting but hard read. I will have to check it out, thanks for the information Michael.

Michael not easy I am sure but your recommendation has seen me add it to my TBR.

Has anyone read this? I thought it was very good indeed.

by Guy Walters

No but it is added to the TBR. I have watched an excellent doco series recently called The Nazi Hunters this book will be a great follow up to it.

I can't remember if we have mentioned this book elsewhere in the group but this appears to be an important account of this dreadful episode in human history by Peter Longerich

This is a review by
Roger Moorhouse the author of for BBC History Magazine which I buy each month and have reproduced here (source BBC History Magazine www.historyextra.com)

The question of precisely when the order for the genocide against the Jews was given continues to exercise many in the historical fraternity. But, as Peter Longerich argues, this question can serve to undermine our wider understanding of the Holocaust.

Longerich’s book is, in one sense, a return to basics. It is a solid, thorough account of the Nazi genocide, methodically tracking the evolution and implementation of the policy against the Jews culminating in the Holocaust.

The focus is primarily on the perpetrators – both the desk-bound and the bloody-handed varieties – and the chain of command that enabled them to do what they did.

The book centres on two contentions. The first, somewhat uncontroversially, is the suggestion that anti-Semitism – far from being a peripheral concern, or a byproduct of circumstances – was absolutely central to the Nazi project, serving as a guiding principle in politics, and finding its echoes in every facet of life in the Third Reich.

The second, more intriguing, suggestion is the one noted above, that the search for a ‘smoking gun’ in the Holocaust has skewed the study of the subject. Longerich contends, convincingly, that the Holocaust developed not from a single top-down command, but rather had a multitude of drivers and as such developed an almost organic dynamism of its own, where orders from the top would be mediated and interpreted by local commanders and adapted to conditions on the ground.

Longerich’s account is sober, sometimes a little arid, eschewing the use of any emotive language or eyewitness accounts in favour of a resolute objectivity and detachment. As such it will not appeal to all among a general, non-specialist readership, but it
is nonetheless an impressive and comprehensive study of the Holocaust, tying together much of the modern scholarship on the subject into a single, accessible and well-written volume.

--------------- End --------------

NB: I have Mr Moorehouse's Berlin at War to read very soon and also have a copy of
by Peter Longerich too.

Great post Geevee, thanks for the information on what sounds like a very important book. I am sure it will attract the attention of a few members here.

I also have a copy of "Berlin at War" by Moorehouse that I need to read soon as well :)

Excellent book Berlin at War I gave it 5 stars.

I have not read this book although I have seen some very good reader reviews online:

by Denis Avey
Description:
In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a POW labour camp, E715, near Auschwitz III. He had heard of the brutality meted out to the prisoners there and he was determined to witness what he could.

He hatched a plan to swap places with a Jewish inmate and smuggled himself into his sector of the camp. He spent the night there on two occasions and experienced at first-hand the cruelty of a place where slave workers, had been sentenced to death through labour.

Astonishingly, he survived to witness the aftermath of the Death March where thousands of prisoners were murdered by the Nazis as the Soviet Army advanced. After his own long trek right across central Europe he was repatriated to Britain.

For decades he couldn't bring himself to revisit the past, but now Denis Avey feels able to tell the full story - a tale as gripping as it is moving - which offers us a unique insight into the mind of an ordinary man whose moral and physical courage are almost beyond belief.

Reviews:
"This is a most important book, and a timely reminder of the dangers that face any society once intolerance and racism take hold." - Sir Martin Gilbert

"This memoir is an important contribution to a terrible chapter in history." - Daily Express

"Denis is a hero in time of terror, a man of limitless moral and physical courage." - Henry Kamm, New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner

"This is the most amazing Holocaust memoir it's been my good fortune to read...this is a beautiful, uplifting book about a real ben adom, a mensch, who saw evil and, instead of averting his eyes, did what he could to help the victims." - Washington Jewish Week

"an excellent memoir of survival." - Publishers Weekly

"A unique war story from a brave man." - Kirkus

"This is the incredible story of British soldier Denis Avey who broke into Auschwitz to uncover the horrors that were concealed there by the Nazis...This is a brutal account of what he experienced. There are some who doubt his story but don't let that ruin this extraordinary book." - Press Association

"THE MAN WHO BROKE INTO AUSCHWITZ will take your breath away." - La revista de Ana Rosa (Spain)

"What starts as an act of reportage then becomes a moving and ultimately triumphant story of survival." - Belfast Telegraph

"Exceptional." - Morgenpost (Germany)

"An astonishing heroic tale of a steady character." - Jüdische Zeitung (Germany)

"An admirable story." - Periodista digital (Spain)

"A remarkable story." - De Telegraaf (Holland)

"A strange, brave and bracing story." - Canberra Times (Australia)

Rick I watched an interesting BBC programme called Witness to Auschwitz on the author recently exploring his story and interviewing him where differences or changes in his story where discussed. He says he did break in and that changes are inevitable owing to his age and the time elapsed - others say he did not break in and he has fabricated it.

Very interesting Geevee, sad to think it’s a fabrication or a figment of someone’s imagination.

Here are two early publications on some different aspects of the Holocaust:

by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Description:
This groundbreaking international bestseller lays to rest many myths about the Holocaust: that Germans were ignorant of the mass destruction of Jews, that the killers were all SS men, and that those who slaughtered Jews did so reluctantly. Hitler's Willing Executioners provides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans. Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews during the 1930s popular. Drawing on a wealth of unused archival materials, principally the testimony of the killers themselves, Goldhagen takes us into the killing fields where Germans voluntarily hunted Jews like animals, tortured them wantonly, and then posed cheerfully for snapshots with their victims. From mobile killing units, to the camps, to the death marches, Goldhagen shows how ordinary Germans, nurtured in a society where Jews were seen as unalterable evil and dangerous, willingly followed their beliefs to their logical conclusion.

Review:
“Goldhagen's gripping and shocking landmark study transforms our understanding of the Holocaust. Refuting the widespread notion that those who carried out the genocide of Jews were primarily SS men or Nazi party members, he demonstrates that the perpetrators, those who staffed and oversaw the concentration camps, slave labor camps, genocidal army units, police battalions, ghettos, death marches, were, for the most part, ordinary German men and women: merchants, civil servants, academics, farmers, students, managers, skilled and unskilled workers. Rejecting the conventional view that the killers were slavishly carrying out orders under coercion, Goldhagen, assistant professor of government at Harvard, uses hitherto untapped primary sources, including the testimonies of the perpetrators themselves, to show that they killed Jews willingly, approvingly, even zealously. Hitler's genocidal program of a "Final Solution" found ready accomplices in these ordinary Germans who, as Goldhagen persuasively argues, had absorbed a virulent, "eliminationist" anti-Semitism, prevalent as far back as the 18th century, which demonized the Jews and called for their expulsion or physical annihilation. Furthermore, his research reveals that a large proportion of the killers were told by their commanders that they could disobey orders to kill, without fear of retribution, yet they slaughtered Jews anyway. By his careful estimate, hundreds of thousands of Germans were directly involved in the mass murder, and millions more knew of the ongoing genocide. Among the 30 photographs are snapshots taken by the murderers of themselves and their victims. – Publishers Weekly

And the second title of interest:


by Christopher R. Browning
Description:
In the early hours of July 13, 1942, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of the German Order Police, entered the Polish Village of Jozefow. They had arrived in Poland less than three weeks before, most of them recently drafted family men too old for combat service--workers, artisans, salesmen, and clerks. By nightfall, they had rounded up Jozefow's 1,800 Jews, selected several hundred men as "work Jews," and shot the rest--that is, some 1,500 women, children, and old people. Most of these overage, rear-echelon reserve policemen had grown to maturity in the port city of Hamburg in pre-Hitler Germany and were neither committed Nazis nor racial fanatics. Nevertheless, in the sixteen months from the Jozefow massacre to the brutal Erntefest ("harvest festival") slaughter of November 1943, these average men participated in the direct shooting deaths of at least 38,000 Jews and the deportation to Treblinka's gas chambers of 45,000 more--a total body count of 83,000 for a unit of less than 500 men. Drawing on postwar interrogations of 210 former members of the battalion, Christopher Browning lets them speak for themselves about their contribution to the Final Solution--what they did, what they thought, how they rationalized their behavior (one man would shoot only infants and children, to "release" them from their misery). In a sobering conclusion, Browning suggests that these good Germans were acting less out of deference to authority or fear of punishment than from motives as insidious as they are common: careerism and peer pressure. With its unflinching reconstruction of the battalion's murderous record and its painstaking attention to the social background and actions of individual men, this unique account offers some of the most powerful and disturbing evidence to date of the ordinary human capacity for extraordinary inhumanity.

Reviews:
"Browning reconstructs how a German reserve police battalion composed of "ordinary men," middle-aged, working class people, killed tens of thousands of Jews during WW II." - Publishers Weekly

"Chilling analysis of how a typical unit of German police actually operated during the Holocaust, by Browning (History/Pacific Lutheran Univ.). In March 1942, some 75 to 80 percent of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive. Eleven months later, 75 to 80 percent were dead--the result, Browning says, of ``a short, intense wave of mass murder,'' centered in Poland. During 16 months, Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of just over 450 men from Hamburg, was responsible in Poland for the shooting of 39,000 Jews and the deportation to Treblinka of 44,000 more. The horror began on July 13, 1942, when the unit's commander, one Major Trapp, ordered his men to round up 1,800 Jews from the village of Jozefow, to select several hundred as ``work Jews,'' and to shoot the rest--men, women, and children. Trapp apparently gave the order with tears in his eyes and gave permission to older soldiers not to participate. Altogether, 10 to 20 percent of the battalion availed themselves of this permission. The remaining men carried out the assignment: ``the shooters were gruesomely besmirched with blood, brains, and bone splinters. It hung on their clothing.'' What sort of men were they? Browning bases his answers on the judicial interrogation in the 1960's of 210 men from the battalion. They were ordinary men, he finds, on the elderly side, drawn from the lower orders of German society, and few had an education above junior-high-school level. And after examining studies dealing with this phenomenon and evidence of such conduct in other wars, Browning determines that it's not just Nazism or Germans that produces such men: There were American units in the Pacific that boasted of never taking captives. ``If the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances,'' he writes, ``what group of men cannot?'' It is the care with which Browning examines the evidence, as well as the soberness of his conclusions, that gives this work such power and impact." - Kirkus Reviews

"A remarkable--and singularly chilling--glimpse of human behavior...This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust." - Andrew Nagorski, (Newsweek)

"A staggering and important book, a book that manages without polemic to communicate at least an intimation of the unthinkable." - Michael Dorris, (Chicago)Tribune

"Helps us understand, better than we did before, not only what they did to make the Holocaust happen but also how they were transformed psychologically from the ordinary men of [the] title into active participants in the most monstrous crime in human history." - New York Times Book Review

This book is one that I have on my 'to-read' list and from what I have heard so far it is a very good account:

by Richard Rhodes
Description:
In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the part played by the Einsatzgruppen - the professional killing squads deployed in Poland and the Soviet Union, early in World War II, by Himmler's SS. And he shows how these squads were utilized as the Nazis made two separate plans for dealing with the civilian populations they wanted to destroy. Drawing on Nuremberg Tribunal documents largely ignored until now, and on newly available material from eyewitnesses and survivors, Richard Rhodes has given us a book that is essential reading on the Holocaust the World War II

I have read this book Rick and it was an excellent read.

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Very interesting Geevee, sad to think it’s a fabrication or a figment of someone’s imagination."

Fair to say Rick I came away uncertain. Some have asked for more proof whilst one of the key interviewers of veterans at the Imperial War Museum believes the account and why his story has changed or why he stayed silent for many years.

May be a case of reading the book and deciding for your self but it does sort of put you off buying a copy eh!

Ian Kershaw's book; Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution, has received some very good reviews:

by Ian Kershaw
Description:
This book is the culmination of more than three decades of meticulous historiographic research on Nazi Germany by one of the period's most distinguished historians. The volume brings together the most important and influential aspects of Ian Kershaw's research on the Holocaust for the first time. The writings are arranged in three sections: Hitler and the Final Solution, popular opinion and the Jews in Nazi Germany, and the Final Solution in historiography. Kershaw provides an introduction and a closing section on the uniqueness of Nazism. Kershaw was a founding historian of the social history of the Third Reich, and he has throughout his career conducted pioneering research on the societal causes and consequences of Nazi policy. His work has brought much to light concerning the ways in which the attitudes of the German populace shaped and did not shape Nazi policy. Taken together, the journal articles and book chapters selected for this volume present a comprehensive, multi-faceted picture both of the destructive dynamic of the Nazi leadership and of the attitudes and behaviour of ordinary Germans as the persecution of the Jews spiraled into total genocide.

Reviews:
"Ian Kershaw has written a well thought-out analysis providing keen insight ... This book is an important study." - Jay Levinson, (Jewish Tribune)

"Essential reading for anyone interested in the uniqueness of Nazi Germany." - Good Book Guide

"For anyone who savors highly insightful essays written by an expert historian ... this is an excellent book." - Jurgen Matthaus, (Central European History, Vol. 42)

"A fine collection of essays ... an elegant, balanced account of the way scholarship on Nazi Germany has evolved." - Jonathan Steinberg,( War in History)

"... a fascinating record of the evolution of historical opinion." - Ralph Amelan, (The Jerusalem Report)

"The classic essays in the book will remain required reading for students of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust for years." - BBC History Magazine

This sounds like an horrific tale from the Holocaust:



by Flint Whitlock
Description:
Much has been written about the Nazi concentration camps, but one camp--Buchenwald--stands out as the most horrific of them all. The Beasts of Buchenwald is the story of Buchenwald's brutal first commandant, Karl Koch, and his equally brutal wife, Ilse. Their reign of terror, which included beatings, torture, and the killing of helpless inmates so their tattooed skin could adorn lampshades and other personal items, ended with Karl's execution for embezzlement and Ilse's war-crimes trial of the century.

Reviews:
"THE BEASTS OF BUCHENWALD paints a chilling portrait of callous inhumanity. Whitlock tells the story with an urgency which resounds through the decades." - Michael E Haskew, Editor, WWII History Magazine

"Gruesome, fascinating, utterly compelling, Whitlock's narrative whips along, providing a well-balanced and highly informative look inside the vicious heart of the Nazi regime." - Alex Kershaw, author of THE BEDFORD BOYS

Another newish book taken from the other side of the wire:

by Ian Baxter
Description:
The story of the SS of Treblinka is a highly compelling one. This book provides vivid descriptions of events in the camp from the point of view of the men that witnessed them. Using interviews, personal letters, and unpublished diaries, some supplied by historian Marcin Zborska in Warsaw and published for the first time, Ian Baxter gives a fascinating insight into the camp that saw the murder of some 800,000 Jews. The book paints a chilling picture of the staff at Treblinka, showing the SS-men during breaks from their murderous activities, relaxing in their barracks, or visiting the camp zoo with their families. Diary extracts will allow a reader inside the heads of these men who, in some cases felt themselves fortunate to be posted at Treblinka. The inner working of the camp are exposed here in unprecedented detail—from the techniques of mass murder to the bizarre rituals that developed within the camp.

This sounds like a book that should be read by as many people as possible:

by David A. Hackett
Description:
In the closing weeks of World War II, advancing Allied armies uncovered the horror of the Nazi concentration camps. The first camp to be liberated in western Germany was Buchenwald, on April 11, 1945. Within days, a special team of German-speaking intelligence officers from the U.S. Army was dispatched to Buchenwald to interview the prisoners there. In the short time available to them before the inmates' final release from the camp, this team was to prepare a report to be used against the Nazis in future war crimes trials. Nowhere else was such a systematic effort made to talk with prisoners and record their firsthand knowledge of the daily life, structure, and functioning of a concentration camp. The result was an important and unique document, The Buchenwald Report. Shockingly, not long after the war ended The Buchenwald Report was almost lost forever. Only selected portions were entered as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Professor Eugen Kogon, a prisoner at Buchenwald who assisted the Army specialists in conducting their interviews and writing the report, made use of the material gathered as a background source for his classic book, The Theory and Practice of Hell, but subsequently his copy was accidently destroyed. Thus the complete report was never published, and both the original document and a precious handful of copies gradually disappeared. Recently-more than four decades later-a single, faded carbon copy was discovered, apparently the only one still in existence. It is translated from German and presented here in book form, as its authors intended, for the first time.The book is divided into two parts. The first, the Main Report, formally presents the interview team's findings. It describes in detail the camp's history, how it was organized and functioned, who the prisoners were, how they lived, and how they were treated by their Nazi captors. This part of the report is based on the camp's own incriminating files and records as well as on information obtained from the prisoners.The second part, the Individual Reports, is the heart of the book. Here are the eyewitness accounts of the camp inmates, statements taken while they were still behind the same barbed wire that had held them for so many years. The prisoners relate events so recent, so painful, that they can only speak with strong emotions but often with great eloquence. The interview team had the foresight to take these accounts and organize them according to specific topics, for example forced labor, daily camp life, punishments, resistance, or SS guards. As a result, the book goes beyond simply a collection of individual stories, providing instead a well-rounded portrayal of every aspect of Buchenwald concentration camp from the prisoners' point of view. The Buchenwald Report is one of the most remarkable and important documents to emerge from the Holocaust and World War II. It is a deposition against the monstrous crimes of the Nazis, damning testimony provided by their intended victims in a final act of defiance. These are the voices of people courageous enough to tarry a while longer in hell, so that they could tell the world the truth at last. Perhaps they already sensed that, as Milan Kundera was to put it, "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." After fifty years, and too many lapses of memory, we know they were right.

One of the most devastating books I have ever read about the Holocaust--and I have read a lot of them-- is The Holocaust by Bullets, A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews, by Father Patrick Desbois.

In 2004, Father Desbois, A French Catholic priest, took it upon himself to visit the Ukraine, traveling from tiny town to tiny town, listening to elderly villagers who want to tell someone about the horrific, unspeakable things they witnessed when they were little children, to get it off their chests before they die. In story after story, every Jew in an entire community is rounded up, brought to a scar of land outside of town, and brutally murdered. No survivors.

From Wikipedia: "The new mayor led Desbois to the forest where, Desbois says, approximately 50 elderly men and women of the village were gathered in a semicircle. "You are standing on the graves of the last 1,500 Jews of Rawa-Ruska," the mayor said. One by one the villagers stepped forward and told of their experiences during World War II. They told of how the Jews were marched out to this clearing, forced to dig steep pits and hand over their valuables before being shot. They recounted stories of how the Germans had forced them-children or teenagers at the time-to guard the Jews to prevent them from escaping, to cover the corpse-filled pits, to serve the German soldiers food and even bring them a gramophone so they could listen to music."

I should mention here that my father is a Holocaust survivor from the Ukraine. Like I said. Devastating.

Thank you Helen it no doubt is a hard read - and I am sure this subject is far harder for you with that personal connection - but one based on your recommendation that I have added to my TBR to read in the future.

It's a shattering, stomach-wrenching read. I've been wanting to read Ordinary Men, but I'm actually afraid.

Yes it is a book I have considered and shied away from.

Whilst not a book about solely about the Holocaust/Final Solution I would recommend this to add detail to the wider catastrophe by Toby Thacker

Thanks, I'll look for it. My next book is Auschwitz, A Doctor's Eyewitness Account, by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli.

A great recommendation there Helen! Thanks for bringing the book The Holocaust by Bullets, A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews to our notice.

I saw this in the bookstore today and thought it looked interesting.

by Primo Levi

Thanks Nicole, another good book to add to the list.

Sure, Rick. I recommend it very highly. Another, terrible facet of the war.

I have this one from Primo Levi on the TBR:

Another good book Mike, thanks for mentioning it.

I picked this up at a recent charity book sale:

That sounds like another good book on a terrible subject, thanks for posting the details Jim.


by Thomas Toivi Blatt
Description:
When the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Thomas Toivi Blatt was twelve years old. He and his family lived in the largely Jewish town of Izbica in the Lublin district of Poland - a district that was to become the site of three of the six major Nazi extermination camps: Belzec, Sobibor, and Majdanek. Blatt's account of his childhood in Izbica provides a fascinating glimpse of Jewish life in Poland after the German invasion and during the periods of mass deportations of Jews to the camps. Blatt tells of the chilling events that led to his deportation to Sobibor, of his separation from his family, and of the six months he spent at Sobibor before taking part in the most successful uprising and mass breakout in any Nazi camp during World War II. Blatt's tale of escape, and of the five horrifying years spent eluding both the Nazis and later anti-Semitic Polish nationalists, is a firsthand account of one of the most terrifying and savage events of human history. From the Ashes of Sobibor also includes a moving interview with Karl Frenzel, a Nazi commandant from Sobibor

Here is a book I picked up a while ago and covers a different aspect of the Holocaust:

by Allan Levine
Description:
As the Second World War and the Nazi assault on Europe ended, some 25,000 Jews, entire families in some instances, walked out of the forests of Eastern Europe. The forest not only protected them, it also became their base for sabotage and resistance efforts against the Germans and their allies. Based on numerous interviews with the survivors themselves, "Fugitives of the Forest" tells the harrowing and heroic story of those who resisted amid such perilous conditions. Among them: the remarkable story of Tuvia Bielski and his rescue of more than 1,200 Jews from a certain death (subject of the major motion picture "Defiance", to be released December 2008); the tragic resistance struggle of Dr. Yeheskel Atlas; the bravery and resourcefulness of Misha Gildenman; and, the tale of the Vilna Ghetto. Many of us will ask the troubling question: Why did not more Jews resist? But the question should be: How, under the circumstances, was any resistance possible at all?

Reviews:
"The remarkable story of Tuvia Bielski and his rescue of more than 1,200 Jews from a certain death - the subject of the major motion picture DEFIANCE, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schrieber." - Globe Pequot Press

"Allan Levine has written an important book...He tells the story of Jewish armed resistance in Eastern Europe very well. He weaves personal vignettes, often poignant into his narrative...His graphic and gripping account should ensure a wide readership." - Winnipeg Free Press

"For those of us who participated in the events detailed in this book, its significance lies in the author s ability to chronicle our thoughts, our moods, our objectives, our tragedies, and our sufferings, as well as our hopes, dreams, and victories." - Peter Silverman, a former resistance fighter

Sounds like a great book, Aussie Rick, I'll have to read that one!

My mother's town was 6 km from Sobibor. Her family was first protected by a high placed Nazi, and when it became clear that he wouldn't be able to protect them much longer, they went to hide with some very brave farmers. When I was growing up, her lantsmen--friends from the old country--used to sit around our table at holidays. Two of them were ex-partisans. I walked in on the end of a conversation that concluded with, "So I jumped out of a tree, and I killed him with my knife." The sort of conversation you don't forget.