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The Holocaust: A New History
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER AND THE FIRST AUTHORITATIVE ACCOUNT FOR 30 YEARS.
'By far the clearest book ever written about the Holocaust, and also the best at explaining its origins and grotesque mentality, as well as its chaotic development' Antony Beevor
'Groundbreaking. You might have thought that we know everything there is to know about the Holocaust but this book proves there is much more' Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday
Two fundamental questions about the Holocaust must be answered:
How did it happen? And why?
More completely than any other single work of history yet published, Laurence Rees's Holocaust definitively answers them.
'With The Holocaust Rees has set himself the task of writing an accessible chronological account of the murder of six million Jews in conditions of scarcely imaginable horror. He's done it excellently. There is no shortage of books on the Holocaust but Rees's stands out as a readable and authoritative exposition of how and why it happened, and the barbarous methods by which it was pursued. The amount of ground it covers in 500 pages is remarkable - from the anti-Semitism of popular German literature of the 19th century to Hitler's suicide and the surrender of his regime. It's excellently written and skilfully interweaves narrative history, sound interpretation and the recollections (through interviews, listed in the notes as "previously unpublished testimony") of survivors. Rees provides an exemplary account of how the greatest crime in modern history came about' The Times
'Rees has distilled 25 years of research into this compelling study, the finest single-volume account of the Holocaust. It is not a book for the faint-hearted. Some of the first-hand testimony is both shocking and heart-rending. Yet it has important things to say about human nature - what our species is capable of doing if not prevented by civilized laws - and demands to be read' Saul David, Telegraph
'Anyone wanting a compelling, highly readable explanation of how and why the Holocaust happened, drawing on recent scholarship and impressively incorporating moving and harrowing interviews need look no further than Laurence Rees's brilliant book' Professor Ian Kershaw, bestselling author of Hitler
'By far the clearest book ever written about the Holocaust, and also the best at explaining its origins and grotesque mentality, as well as its chaotic development' Antony Beevor
'Groundbreaking. You might have thought that we know everything there is to know about the Holocaust but this book proves there is much more' Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday
Two fundamental questions about the Holocaust must be answered:
How did it happen? And why?
More completely than any other single work of history yet published, Laurence Rees's Holocaust definitively answers them.
'With The Holocaust Rees has set himself the task of writing an accessible chronological account of the murder of six million Jews in conditions of scarcely imaginable horror. He's done it excellently. There is no shortage of books on the Holocaust but Rees's stands out as a readable and authoritative exposition of how and why it happened, and the barbarous methods by which it was pursued. The amount of ground it covers in 500 pages is remarkable - from the anti-Semitism of popular German literature of the 19th century to Hitler's suicide and the surrender of his regime. It's excellently written and skilfully interweaves narrative history, sound interpretation and the recollections (through interviews, listed in the notes as "previously unpublished testimony") of survivors. Rees provides an exemplary account of how the greatest crime in modern history came about' The Times
'Rees has distilled 25 years of research into this compelling study, the finest single-volume account of the Holocaust. It is not a book for the faint-hearted. Some of the first-hand testimony is both shocking and heart-rending. Yet it has important things to say about human nature - what our species is capable of doing if not prevented by civilized laws - and demands to be read' Saul David, Telegraph
'Anyone wanting a compelling, highly readable explanation of how and why the Holocaust happened, drawing on recent scholarship and impressively incorporating moving and harrowing interviews need look no further than Laurence Rees's brilliant book' Professor Ian Kershaw, bestselling author of Hitler
528 pages, Paperback
First published January 26, 2017
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April 1, 2017
I have a real interest in WWII and, as such, have been meaning to read something by Laurence Rees, one of the foremost experts in this area, for some time. Having finally taken the plunge, I started with his latest book, “The Holocaust,” a subject which there have been so many books about that perhaps you may ask what there is to say that is new. However, Rees takes a slightly different slant on the subject – asking major questions, ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’ the Holocaust happened and utilising twenty five years of research and interviews to help him answer these difficult questions.
As he demonstrates in this work, there is no easy answer and no one, particular, moment, which led to the Holocaust. As important as any particular event, such as Kristallnacht, the Euthanasia programme of mentally and physically disabled, the Wannsee Conference, or any other, terrible moment, that historians can point to – these were but ‘steps and stages’ along the way to the systematic slaughter of the Holocaust.
In this book, the author takes us from the ‘Origins of Hate,’ with the early history of the party, to the very end of the war, with Hitler still obsessed with the destruction of the Jews, even though the war was all but lost. He considers Hitler’s influence; not only in directing so much obsessive hate against the Jewish people, but also in allowing the ways the murderous activities unfolded down to the rather vague directions he gave those in his own Party to carry out his orders. These caused great disparities in the ways that people were treated throughout Europe and in the ways that leading members of the Nazi party on the ground interpreted the orders they received.
Interestingly, as Rees pointed out, most Jewish people would have thought Germany a fairly safe haven, compared to many other countries. Anti Semitism was much more likely in Russia than in Germany, which seemed comparatively safe, and civilised, by comparison. Those who fled violent pogroms felt settled; to many, even as they boarded cattle trucks to take them to concentration camps, the rumours that Jewish people were being systematically killed seemed impossible.
The book explains how early resistance to restrictions in Germany led to Hitler complaining about the ‘international conspiracy’ of Jews, which meant that any protests from overseas made things worse for Jewish people in the Reich. It shows how Hitler concentrated on a re-education of the nation and how vital it was to target the young and of how they were told they were ‘superior’ and ‘special.’ How persecution of the gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, political opponents and, always, Jews, mounted as Hitler’s powers grew. Of how other countries refused to take in refugees, the role of the Catholic Church and the fact that the Holocaust could not have functioned without collaboration from other countries. It also shows that the methods used for killing were largely changed to create better methods for those doing the killing, rather than those the system aimed to kill. The system created a mechanism of death and murder that has remained unparalleled.
As defeat for Germany looked more likely, we see how countries, and later high ranking Nazi officers, tried to distance themselves from events. However, Hitler refused to countenance any excuses. For him, there was no dichotomy in pursuing the eradication of the Jewish race, even though it meant that important manpower and resources were taken away from what would seem to be the more important task of fighting the war. It is impossible to say that you enjoy reading books like this – but this is an excellent explanation of the events which led to the Holocaust and of explaining how, and why, it happened.
As he demonstrates in this work, there is no easy answer and no one, particular, moment, which led to the Holocaust. As important as any particular event, such as Kristallnacht, the Euthanasia programme of mentally and physically disabled, the Wannsee Conference, or any other, terrible moment, that historians can point to – these were but ‘steps and stages’ along the way to the systematic slaughter of the Holocaust.
In this book, the author takes us from the ‘Origins of Hate,’ with the early history of the party, to the very end of the war, with Hitler still obsessed with the destruction of the Jews, even though the war was all but lost. He considers Hitler’s influence; not only in directing so much obsessive hate against the Jewish people, but also in allowing the ways the murderous activities unfolded down to the rather vague directions he gave those in his own Party to carry out his orders. These caused great disparities in the ways that people were treated throughout Europe and in the ways that leading members of the Nazi party on the ground interpreted the orders they received.
Interestingly, as Rees pointed out, most Jewish people would have thought Germany a fairly safe haven, compared to many other countries. Anti Semitism was much more likely in Russia than in Germany, which seemed comparatively safe, and civilised, by comparison. Those who fled violent pogroms felt settled; to many, even as they boarded cattle trucks to take them to concentration camps, the rumours that Jewish people were being systematically killed seemed impossible.
The book explains how early resistance to restrictions in Germany led to Hitler complaining about the ‘international conspiracy’ of Jews, which meant that any protests from overseas made things worse for Jewish people in the Reich. It shows how Hitler concentrated on a re-education of the nation and how vital it was to target the young and of how they were told they were ‘superior’ and ‘special.’ How persecution of the gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, political opponents and, always, Jews, mounted as Hitler’s powers grew. Of how other countries refused to take in refugees, the role of the Catholic Church and the fact that the Holocaust could not have functioned without collaboration from other countries. It also shows that the methods used for killing were largely changed to create better methods for those doing the killing, rather than those the system aimed to kill. The system created a mechanism of death and murder that has remained unparalleled.
As defeat for Germany looked more likely, we see how countries, and later high ranking Nazi officers, tried to distance themselves from events. However, Hitler refused to countenance any excuses. For him, there was no dichotomy in pursuing the eradication of the Jewish race, even though it meant that important manpower and resources were taken away from what would seem to be the more important task of fighting the war. It is impossible to say that you enjoy reading books like this – but this is an excellent explanation of the events which led to the Holocaust and of explaining how, and why, it happened.
July 29, 2025
This is a great readable history of the attempt by the Nazis to kill every single Jewish person in Europe. There was a conference in 1942 where one SS guy presented his colleagues with a list of estimated numbers of Jews in each country – the countries listed included the ones the Nazis hadn’t conquered yet, like Britain and Ireland. They were going to get round to every Jew, once the war was won. You can’t do everything immediately, much as you might want to.
I’ve quoted this before but it’s always worth quoting again. It’s by Primo Levi and he is imagining a conversation between an SS guard and a Jewish camp prisoner. The guard explains :
However this war may end, we have won the war against you. None of you will be left to bear witness, but even if someone were to survive, the world would not believe him. There will be perhaps suspicions, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain and some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed – they will say they are the exaggerations of Allied propaganda and will believe us, who will deny everything, and not you.
A QUICK SUMMARY
The Nazis murdered between 5 and 6 million Jews which was one third of the total global Jewish population and two thirds of all European Jews.
75% of the murdered Jews were from Poland and the Soviet Union.
50% of all victims died in the 6 extermination camps Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau
25% died in shootings by the Einsatzgruppen
25% died in ghettos, and in concentration camps
50% of victims died in the year between March 1942 and March 1943.
Treblinka was the second biggest extermination camp. It was about an hour away from Warsaw and operated between July 1942 and October 1943. During that period between 700,000 and 900,000 people were killed there. A steady 50,000 per month. Hard to believe.
Not all victims of the Nazis were Jewish. The largest group of victims after the Jews were Soviet prisoners of war, around 3 million of those died. Another group that’s often mentioned is the Roma and Sinti (called Gypsies by the Nazis). They were hated too, and haphazardly shoved into camps here and there, but only in the case of the Jews was the idea that they would all be physically liquidated. Around 250,000 Roma and Sinti died.
WAS THERE A PLAN RIGHT FROM THE START? NO
People read Mein Kampf and listened to Hitler’s raving raging speeches promising the total destruction of the Jews and they concluded that he always intended to exterminate them physically, but this was not the case. At first he wanted to get rid of all Jews from Germany. And a lot of Jews agreed with him – once he came along, Germany was the last place they wanted to be. So there was a clamour, and in March 1938 Roosevelt proposed an international conference, to be held in Evian-le-Bains, a town on Lake Geneva in France. A committee was formed – the Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees. Quite right. Goodly hearted diplomats all turned up to the grand hotel there. But alas, not too much got done. Let Mackenzie King, PM of Canada, speak for them :
A very difficult question has presented itself in Roosevelt’s appeal to different countries to unite with the USA in admitting refugees from Austria, Germany etc. That means, in a word, admitting numbers of Jews. My own feeling is that nothing is to be gained by creating an internal problem in an effort to meet an international one.
There was a general feeling that well, if we admit these German and Austrian Jews, a lot of Eastern European countries will turn up the heat on their Jews and make a fuss for us to accept those too. And there are millions of these Jews.
Rees adds :
The British authorities must take responsibility for not allowing “the immense possibilities of Palestine as an outlet for Jewish immigration” to be discussed. But by the time of the Evian conference the British must have believed they had enough problems controlling Palestine without adding more potential conflict to the existing mix.
Hitler was very disappointed in the attitude of the democracies, and called them some rude names, like hypocrite. So now what were the Nazis to do? They decided to round up the Jews and put them all in ghettos. And then deport them to distant lands, once they’d conquered those lands.
There was a hot debate between members of the SS when the Jews were stuffed into the ghettos – some said why should we keep feeding them? Let them starve. And there was starvation in the ghettos. But some SS said no, we’ll keep them alive and make them work for us. So some SS did one thing, and some SS did another.
After the invasion of Poland and then Russia, the Einsatzgruppen squads started shooting large numbers of Jews in occupied territory, but there was still not a plan to actually physically liquidate every Jewish man woman and child. It was just too outrageoud an idea, even for the likes of Himmler. But the Nazi regime was radically improvisational. When faced with a problem, you were not supposed to wait for orders, you were supposed to think “what would Hitler want me to do”. Think like a Fuhrer. So the Holocaust evolved – an initiative here, a bold move there, until finally, a plan did crystallise in late 1941, or early 1942, take your pick, historians argue about the details.
USELESS MOUTHS
The Nazis also wanted to eradicate all mentally and physically disabled people, they said why should we be keeping these “useless mouths” alive, they don’t deserve to live, and they set up six “euthanasia” centres. This is where they first experimented with gas (another local initiative), beginning with carbon monoxide, using the famous fake shower method. Rees gives the details of one of them, located in the grounds of Sonnenstein Castle, south of Dresden.
From June 1940 to August 1941 an estimated 14,751 people were murdered in this way
That’s just over 1000 disabled people per month being killed, and there were five other places doing the same thing. In total 70,273 disabled people were gassed at these six centres in 1940 and 1941.
The euthanasia programme came to an end when the personnel were all transferred to various concentration camps to bring their expertise to bear there.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
This is the one stop book for anyone wanting to know about this dreadful period. I can understand why not everyone would want to read it.
I’ve quoted this before but it’s always worth quoting again. It’s by Primo Levi and he is imagining a conversation between an SS guard and a Jewish camp prisoner. The guard explains :
However this war may end, we have won the war against you. None of you will be left to bear witness, but even if someone were to survive, the world would not believe him. There will be perhaps suspicions, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain and some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed – they will say they are the exaggerations of Allied propaganda and will believe us, who will deny everything, and not you.
A QUICK SUMMARY
The Nazis murdered between 5 and 6 million Jews which was one third of the total global Jewish population and two thirds of all European Jews.
75% of the murdered Jews were from Poland and the Soviet Union.
50% of all victims died in the 6 extermination camps Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau
25% died in shootings by the Einsatzgruppen
25% died in ghettos, and in concentration camps
50% of victims died in the year between March 1942 and March 1943.
Treblinka was the second biggest extermination camp. It was about an hour away from Warsaw and operated between July 1942 and October 1943. During that period between 700,000 and 900,000 people were killed there. A steady 50,000 per month. Hard to believe.
Not all victims of the Nazis were Jewish. The largest group of victims after the Jews were Soviet prisoners of war, around 3 million of those died. Another group that’s often mentioned is the Roma and Sinti (called Gypsies by the Nazis). They were hated too, and haphazardly shoved into camps here and there, but only in the case of the Jews was the idea that they would all be physically liquidated. Around 250,000 Roma and Sinti died.
WAS THERE A PLAN RIGHT FROM THE START? NO
People read Mein Kampf and listened to Hitler’s raving raging speeches promising the total destruction of the Jews and they concluded that he always intended to exterminate them physically, but this was not the case. At first he wanted to get rid of all Jews from Germany. And a lot of Jews agreed with him – once he came along, Germany was the last place they wanted to be. So there was a clamour, and in March 1938 Roosevelt proposed an international conference, to be held in Evian-le-Bains, a town on Lake Geneva in France. A committee was formed – the Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees. Quite right. Goodly hearted diplomats all turned up to the grand hotel there. But alas, not too much got done. Let Mackenzie King, PM of Canada, speak for them :
A very difficult question has presented itself in Roosevelt’s appeal to different countries to unite with the USA in admitting refugees from Austria, Germany etc. That means, in a word, admitting numbers of Jews. My own feeling is that nothing is to be gained by creating an internal problem in an effort to meet an international one.
There was a general feeling that well, if we admit these German and Austrian Jews, a lot of Eastern European countries will turn up the heat on their Jews and make a fuss for us to accept those too. And there are millions of these Jews.
Rees adds :
The British authorities must take responsibility for not allowing “the immense possibilities of Palestine as an outlet for Jewish immigration” to be discussed. But by the time of the Evian conference the British must have believed they had enough problems controlling Palestine without adding more potential conflict to the existing mix.
Hitler was very disappointed in the attitude of the democracies, and called them some rude names, like hypocrite. So now what were the Nazis to do? They decided to round up the Jews and put them all in ghettos. And then deport them to distant lands, once they’d conquered those lands.
There was a hot debate between members of the SS when the Jews were stuffed into the ghettos – some said why should we keep feeding them? Let them starve. And there was starvation in the ghettos. But some SS said no, we’ll keep them alive and make them work for us. So some SS did one thing, and some SS did another.
After the invasion of Poland and then Russia, the Einsatzgruppen squads started shooting large numbers of Jews in occupied territory, but there was still not a plan to actually physically liquidate every Jewish man woman and child. It was just too outrageoud an idea, even for the likes of Himmler. But the Nazi regime was radically improvisational. When faced with a problem, you were not supposed to wait for orders, you were supposed to think “what would Hitler want me to do”. Think like a Fuhrer. So the Holocaust evolved – an initiative here, a bold move there, until finally, a plan did crystallise in late 1941, or early 1942, take your pick, historians argue about the details.
USELESS MOUTHS
The Nazis also wanted to eradicate all mentally and physically disabled people, they said why should we be keeping these “useless mouths” alive, they don’t deserve to live, and they set up six “euthanasia” centres. This is where they first experimented with gas (another local initiative), beginning with carbon monoxide, using the famous fake shower method. Rees gives the details of one of them, located in the grounds of Sonnenstein Castle, south of Dresden.
From June 1940 to August 1941 an estimated 14,751 people were murdered in this way
That’s just over 1000 disabled people per month being killed, and there were five other places doing the same thing. In total 70,273 disabled people were gassed at these six centres in 1940 and 1941.
The euthanasia programme came to an end when the personnel were all transferred to various concentration camps to bring their expertise to bear there.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
This is the one stop book for anyone wanting to know about this dreadful period. I can understand why not everyone would want to read it.
December 22, 2018
Wonderful book for anyone that is studying the Holocaust or just looking to learn more. This is an in-depth look at the whole situation from the start to finish. The beginning offers a good look at why the whole thing started, and progresses through each year. Eye witness accounts and stories fill the book, and prove to be very valuable in the accurate portrayal of what happened. This is not a book about the authors opinions, but facts. The research and time that must have went into this book, was no doubt exhausting. Some parts, just like many others about this subject were hard to hear, and gut wrenching. It is so hard for me to fathom that this happened. I was surprised to hear that although this started in Germany, it was a world issue. I had no idea that these countries actually wanted to send the Jews to Madagascar! The United States was mentioned a few times, but I was surprised that at the end of the book there was not more written about their part in ending the war. I heard much about the "Red" army, but I was a little disappointed in the US efforts being left out. I look forward to doing more research of my own, and I found this book valuable in my efforts. Definitely needs to be read by everyone, this is a horrible part of history and we owe it to the victims to never let their suffering to be forgotten. I use the word victims because although the Jews were the main targets, there were also the Gypsies, mentally ill, Jehovah Witnesses and many more that were also targeted.
November 27, 2022
While I couldn’t say I enjoyed this book, Laurence Rees has written an excellent, although rightly shocking, disturbing and heartbreaking account of one of the lowest points in the history of the human race. In the author’s words, “although the contents of the book you have just read are distressing, I believe it is still important to understand how and why this crime happened. For this history tells us, perhaps more than any other, just what our species can do.”
January 26, 2018
Historian Laurence Rees has spent a lifetime studying the Holocaust, and it shows in this book. This is a very readable (and horrifying) retelling that begins in post-WWI Germany and details all the steps in the somewhat haphazard but ultimately effective process that led to the most horrifying mass murder in history.
The holocaust was not the largest genocide in history in terms of death toll (estimates and definitions vary, so it hard to say with certainty) but Rees makes the case (and I think it is a very reasonable case) that many aspects of this particular genocide are uniquely evil and terrifying and these aspects justify its unique position in the history of human mass murder (and this includes comparison with such immense and horrendous crimes as the Arab and European trade in African slaves). Anyhow, readers can (and surely, will) make up their own mind about the relative horror of this particular crime, but if they read this book, they will at least learn the full extent of it.
Rees starts with the currents of antisemitism that circulated in 1920 Germany (many of these were pan-European, some were even of Anglo-American origin) and the process by which Hitler rose to power. The book makes it clear that while anti-semitism was commonplace in Christendom, most Germans were not thinking of systematic genocide; but some violent, sociopathic and evil people were dreaming of it, and they gradually coalesced around Hitler and got the chance to put their demonic ideas into practice, using all the terrifying resources of a powerful modern state.
He also makes clear that there was no single point at which the process was set in motion. There was never one clear directive or one single individual charged with a clear mission to exterminate all Jews, or other "undesirables" (while Jew-hatred formed the central pillar of Nazi thought, Hitler and his minions had many other targets, including mentally and physically disabled Aryan Germans). A general urge to "purify" the Reich of Jews was built into Nazi policy, but it was put into practice gradually and with uneven application, with much variation in intensity, priority and methods.
Many concentration camps where conditions were extremely harsh and brutal were already in place in the early years of Nazi rule, but systematic extermination started after the war was underway. The first use of gas to kill people was by physicians, who used carbon monoxide to kill disabled patients in a room where it was piped in via specially constructed pipes (the patients were stripped before being sent to the room "for showers"). This method was developed because killing them individually by lethal injection or other means was too slow, and was traumatizing for the Nazi physicians doing the killing; distance from the actual act of killing was needed. Some of the details are chlling. For example, disabled children, already herded into special facilities, were taken from the dining room of a children's hospital "for consultation" (some crying and resisting) and never returned. A fact noticed by some of the other children there and remembered years later with horror. And so it goes.
The various instances throughout the thirties where other Western countries resisted Jewish immigration and turned away Jewish refugees are all detailed, as is the everyday antisemitism of leaders from Canada to Poland. When Hitler mooted the possibility of Germany and its eastern neighbors all coordinating a plan to send all their Jews elsewhere ("the colonies" in this case), the Polish ambassador even told Hitler that "if he finds such a way we will erect to him a beautiful monument in Warsaw".
British reluctance to accept refugees or to allow refugees to go to Palestine is also detailed; Neville Chamberlain put it this way "it is of immense importance that Britain should have the Muslim world with us", consequently "if we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs" (this was part of a multi-year resistance to Jewish immigration to Palestine for which the British get no credit from the Arabs today). In the end, the Nazis could claim with some justification that "no one wants to have them", though it must be kept in mind that no one then had any clear idea of exactly how far the Nazis were about to go.
The cooperation of various conquered nations (and the silence, if not the active connivance, of the Pope) in rounding up their Jews is discussed and as expected, the details vary. For example, the occupied and semi-occupied civil services in Holland and France deported more Jews than the German's axis ally, Italy. In fact, in some ways the civil services in Holland and France did a more thorough job than their compatriots in more old-fashioned antisemitic countries such as Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria; though in some cases this may be due less to humane instincts and more to early awareness in Eastern Europe that Germany may lose the war. Some countries went further than others, with Slovaks rounded up Jews with particular alacrity and Croatians even doing their own enthusiastic Jew-killing; incidentally, the Croats shocked even the SS by their shockingly brutal treatment of helpless Serbian civilians.
The role of the Germans themselves is discussed in great detail, making it clear that all of them certainly did not know what was going on, and almost none of them had the whole picture, but far too many knew a lot and actively participated. In the course of the book, Lees also offers the original suggestion (original to me at least) that Himmler and company began to let other senior German officials know more about the ongoing holocaust in 1943 as a way of stiffening their spines as the war turned against Germany. By letting them know what horrendous crimes they were part of, Himmler was also letting them know that "we are all in this together", that after such crimes, defeat is not an a pleasant option. Still, this did not stop Himmler himself, in 1945, from trying to make excuses for the holocaust (in brief, "the war made us do it" or "the allies, by not taking the Jews off our hands") and to even try to make peace by handing over the few remaining Jews in his control.
But luckily for the image of the human race, there are also a few counter-examples. The Danes saved almost all their Jews; part of the "credit" may go to the Nazi in charge, who let them get away without trying too hard to stop them (Lees speculates that he may have seen that the war is going badly and taken his own precautions against the future, or may just have felt that his job was making Denmark "Jew-Free"; so what if they disappeared from Denmark only to reappear in Sweden?). Even in countries where most Jews were killed, there were thousands of individual acts of heroism and humanity. The Poles, for example, have had some bad press after the war for the various antisemitic acts and utterances of Polish leaders and common citizens, but Lees points out that in the midst of horrendous suffering, reprisals and punishments, about 90,0000 Poles risked their own lives to hide 28,000 Jews in Warsaw over the course of the war (11,500 of them survived). Even in Berlin itself, 1700 Jews managed to survive by hiding with Good Germans, who took almost unimaginable risks (and some very material sacrifices, given the severe food shortages at the end) to hide them through 6 years of war. Last but not the least, in the Greek island of Zakynthos, when asked to produce a list of their Jews, the local mayor and bishop handed over a paper with only two names on it: their own. All 275 Jews on the island were hidden in non-Jewish homes and survived.
And on this faint, but heroic positive note, I think I should end this review.
A must-read book.
The holocaust was not the largest genocide in history in terms of death toll (estimates and definitions vary, so it hard to say with certainty) but Rees makes the case (and I think it is a very reasonable case) that many aspects of this particular genocide are uniquely evil and terrifying and these aspects justify its unique position in the history of human mass murder (and this includes comparison with such immense and horrendous crimes as the Arab and European trade in African slaves). Anyhow, readers can (and surely, will) make up their own mind about the relative horror of this particular crime, but if they read this book, they will at least learn the full extent of it.
Rees starts with the currents of antisemitism that circulated in 1920 Germany (many of these were pan-European, some were even of Anglo-American origin) and the process by which Hitler rose to power. The book makes it clear that while anti-semitism was commonplace in Christendom, most Germans were not thinking of systematic genocide; but some violent, sociopathic and evil people were dreaming of it, and they gradually coalesced around Hitler and got the chance to put their demonic ideas into practice, using all the terrifying resources of a powerful modern state.
He also makes clear that there was no single point at which the process was set in motion. There was never one clear directive or one single individual charged with a clear mission to exterminate all Jews, or other "undesirables" (while Jew-hatred formed the central pillar of Nazi thought, Hitler and his minions had many other targets, including mentally and physically disabled Aryan Germans). A general urge to "purify" the Reich of Jews was built into Nazi policy, but it was put into practice gradually and with uneven application, with much variation in intensity, priority and methods.
Many concentration camps where conditions were extremely harsh and brutal were already in place in the early years of Nazi rule, but systematic extermination started after the war was underway. The first use of gas to kill people was by physicians, who used carbon monoxide to kill disabled patients in a room where it was piped in via specially constructed pipes (the patients were stripped before being sent to the room "for showers"). This method was developed because killing them individually by lethal injection or other means was too slow, and was traumatizing for the Nazi physicians doing the killing; distance from the actual act of killing was needed. Some of the details are chlling. For example, disabled children, already herded into special facilities, were taken from the dining room of a children's hospital "for consultation" (some crying and resisting) and never returned. A fact noticed by some of the other children there and remembered years later with horror. And so it goes.
The various instances throughout the thirties where other Western countries resisted Jewish immigration and turned away Jewish refugees are all detailed, as is the everyday antisemitism of leaders from Canada to Poland. When Hitler mooted the possibility of Germany and its eastern neighbors all coordinating a plan to send all their Jews elsewhere ("the colonies" in this case), the Polish ambassador even told Hitler that "if he finds such a way we will erect to him a beautiful monument in Warsaw".
British reluctance to accept refugees or to allow refugees to go to Palestine is also detailed; Neville Chamberlain put it this way "it is of immense importance that Britain should have the Muslim world with us", consequently "if we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs" (this was part of a multi-year resistance to Jewish immigration to Palestine for which the British get no credit from the Arabs today). In the end, the Nazis could claim with some justification that "no one wants to have them", though it must be kept in mind that no one then had any clear idea of exactly how far the Nazis were about to go.
The cooperation of various conquered nations (and the silence, if not the active connivance, of the Pope) in rounding up their Jews is discussed and as expected, the details vary. For example, the occupied and semi-occupied civil services in Holland and France deported more Jews than the German's axis ally, Italy. In fact, in some ways the civil services in Holland and France did a more thorough job than their compatriots in more old-fashioned antisemitic countries such as Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria; though in some cases this may be due less to humane instincts and more to early awareness in Eastern Europe that Germany may lose the war. Some countries went further than others, with Slovaks rounded up Jews with particular alacrity and Croatians even doing their own enthusiastic Jew-killing; incidentally, the Croats shocked even the SS by their shockingly brutal treatment of helpless Serbian civilians.
The role of the Germans themselves is discussed in great detail, making it clear that all of them certainly did not know what was going on, and almost none of them had the whole picture, but far too many knew a lot and actively participated. In the course of the book, Lees also offers the original suggestion (original to me at least) that Himmler and company began to let other senior German officials know more about the ongoing holocaust in 1943 as a way of stiffening their spines as the war turned against Germany. By letting them know what horrendous crimes they were part of, Himmler was also letting them know that "we are all in this together", that after such crimes, defeat is not an a pleasant option. Still, this did not stop Himmler himself, in 1945, from trying to make excuses for the holocaust (in brief, "the war made us do it" or "the allies, by not taking the Jews off our hands") and to even try to make peace by handing over the few remaining Jews in his control.
But luckily for the image of the human race, there are also a few counter-examples. The Danes saved almost all their Jews; part of the "credit" may go to the Nazi in charge, who let them get away without trying too hard to stop them (Lees speculates that he may have seen that the war is going badly and taken his own precautions against the future, or may just have felt that his job was making Denmark "Jew-Free"; so what if they disappeared from Denmark only to reappear in Sweden?). Even in countries where most Jews were killed, there were thousands of individual acts of heroism and humanity. The Poles, for example, have had some bad press after the war for the various antisemitic acts and utterances of Polish leaders and common citizens, but Lees points out that in the midst of horrendous suffering, reprisals and punishments, about 90,0000 Poles risked their own lives to hide 28,000 Jews in Warsaw over the course of the war (11,500 of them survived). Even in Berlin itself, 1700 Jews managed to survive by hiding with Good Germans, who took almost unimaginable risks (and some very material sacrifices, given the severe food shortages at the end) to hide them through 6 years of war. Last but not the least, in the Greek island of Zakynthos, when asked to produce a list of their Jews, the local mayor and bishop handed over a paper with only two names on it: their own. All 275 Jews on the island were hidden in non-Jewish homes and survived.
And on this faint, but heroic positive note, I think I should end this review.
A must-read book.
October 6, 2022
Engaging narrative history of the Holocaust from historian and filmmaker Rees (The Nazis: A Warning from History). Where most writers on the Holocaust, understandably daunted by the subject, often resort to simply compiling its atrocities at encyclopedic length, Rees tries to make his work both comprehensive and accessible. Thus his narrative covers the expected ground (from the antisemitism and political chaos of Weimar Germany to the uncertain role of Jews, whether integrated or outcast, across Europe) while maintaining a documentarian’s perspective, zooming in for telling, human details within the broader chaos and carnage. His trump card’s a wealth of firsthand interviews: Rees surveys survivors of pogroms, death camps and mass shootings, Jewish rebels and partisans who resisted, German and other Axis perpetrators and Gentile witnesses (whether bystanders, friends or partisans), all of whom allow Rees to present key events in the Holocaust vividly, without dwelling on excessive, pedantic detail. And despite its relatively concise length (509 pages in hardcover), it leaves very few key events or personages out. Perhaps there’s too much time spent on some events, like Hitler’s rise to power (which, while necessary to understand antisemitism’s centrality to National Socialism, feels disproportionately represented), and not enough on others; there could, for instance, be more attention to the Nazi persecution of non-Jews who died in roughly equivalent numbers. Yet it’s hard to criticize Rees for synthesizing such a ghastly, overwhelming topic into a volume that’s as moving as it is readable.
February 22, 2018
The fruits of a quarter century of research and interviews with victims, perpetrators and witnesses had produced a thought provoking, readable account of the Third Reich's hatred, persecution and war on the Jewish population of Europe.
While there's little new information on offer, you are invited to rethink your views on the events and the chaotic, haphazard manner of implementation of supposed 'policy' is laid bare, together with some very uncomfortable truths about the nature and scope of anti Semitic feeling throughout Europe.
This book succeeded in challenging my conceptions of the subject, carried through by the conviction and weight of Rees arguments and evidence. A book everyone should read.
While there's little new information on offer, you are invited to rethink your views on the events and the chaotic, haphazard manner of implementation of supposed 'policy' is laid bare, together with some very uncomfortable truths about the nature and scope of anti Semitic feeling throughout Europe.
This book succeeded in challenging my conceptions of the subject, carried through by the conviction and weight of Rees arguments and evidence. A book everyone should read.
January 4, 2018
Of all the books in the airport, there were only two I wanted to read on my journey back from Glasgow to Oslo.
(I'd like to point out that in my suitcase I had maybe 100 secondhand books I'd picked up from charity shops over Xmas, but didn't want to spoil the opportunity to buy a new book, so I took none of them :P)
One was "How to Survive a Plague", the new book about the AIDS crisis—but see, I'd already ordered that and knew I had it waiting for me at the Oslo office this morning (which I did!)
The second was this!
I'm 29 now, a dry run for 30, and you who've read more than one of my reviews have probably worked out that I'm a bit of a weirdo. Fortunately I'm now familiar with the caveats of that and am not really capable of being anything else, so I've wholly embraced it and never felt better. When getting in the plane to Heathrow, while waiting to be seated, I read a few pages of this and the air hostess said "That's a good book."
"Oh!" I said. "Do you know it?"
"What is it?"
She was merely commenting on how engrossed I was in it, so I showed her the cover. She pronounced it The Wholocoarst in near-perfect Queen's English.
I mean, what do I say about this book? From the title and description you get the general idea of its contents, so you'll know whether or not it's for you. I'll just give you my thoughts/takeaways.
It's absolutely amazing that we can make any jokes at all about such a horrific event. Personally I take that as a lesson that, no matter what happens to you, yes you will get over it and laugh about it later. Because humans are capable of making jokes about events this horrendous.
The more important lesson of course is that humans are capable of events this horrendous. I did gasp on several occasions.
Interesting that the practicalities of mass murder were presented as a design issue, a problem to be solved, a "final solution" to the "Jewish question." And I understood why, on some occasions, young chemical engineers for example were brought in to solve them. The joy of the problem-solving engineer, it seems can be entirely divorced from the horror of what the problem is. In certain cases. That was just an interesting lesson for me, a young chemical engineer. And maybe that, on a smaller scale, if someone knows you enjoy being good at something, they might offer you that joy as a way of manipulating you into doing something you don't want to. Appearing weak is an obvious one, because people love to help and often do so at the expense of themselves...
The Jewish race, by the way, was defined as being held by those whose grandparents practiced the Jewish religion—which means no definition could be created that pinned "Jewishness" to an actual race. And the definition slipped and evolved, too. It seems that Nazis so enjoyed genocide that they would've kept making new definitions just to keep it going—while anything was tolerated amongst the Nazi's own ranks, such as homosexuality. Similarly, anti-Semitic Germans who met Jews they didn't know were Jews were certain that these Jews were not in fact Jews—or rather, not the Jews they directed their hatred towards. Ie, only by completely dehumanising the other could they condone the mass murders—if they knew about them at all. The SS communicated with each other in code, and vehemently denied that they were suggesting murder, since they knew it would "look bad." Hitler himself gave woolly instructions, goals without methods, because he didn't care what they were. And one of the problems of the murders was the traumatising effect it had on the people carrying it out.
I had to skim towards the end, which is offensive in itself, I guess—but it just became swathes of numbers, locations. Seems so unreal. Something about 6 million Jews seems possible and yet if you break it down in to 45,000 in this location, 17,000 in this location you think... Hang on: in how many places was this happening, over how long, involving how many compliant people? Astoundingly disgusting. But anti-Semitism was already widespread, it seems. There was no way Hitler could've forced people to do something they had no inkling for at all–he had to gradually push their thoughts to the extreme (the principle of the Overton window, of which contemporary white supremacists are well aware.)
Made for an interesting two days reading for sure.
(I'd like to point out that in my suitcase I had maybe 100 secondhand books I'd picked up from charity shops over Xmas, but didn't want to spoil the opportunity to buy a new book, so I took none of them :P)
One was "How to Survive a Plague", the new book about the AIDS crisis—but see, I'd already ordered that and knew I had it waiting for me at the Oslo office this morning (which I did!)
The second was this!
I'm 29 now, a dry run for 30, and you who've read more than one of my reviews have probably worked out that I'm a bit of a weirdo. Fortunately I'm now familiar with the caveats of that and am not really capable of being anything else, so I've wholly embraced it and never felt better. When getting in the plane to Heathrow, while waiting to be seated, I read a few pages of this and the air hostess said "That's a good book."
"Oh!" I said. "Do you know it?"
"What is it?"
She was merely commenting on how engrossed I was in it, so I showed her the cover. She pronounced it The Wholocoarst in near-perfect Queen's English.
I mean, what do I say about this book? From the title and description you get the general idea of its contents, so you'll know whether or not it's for you. I'll just give you my thoughts/takeaways.
It's absolutely amazing that we can make any jokes at all about such a horrific event. Personally I take that as a lesson that, no matter what happens to you, yes you will get over it and laugh about it later. Because humans are capable of making jokes about events this horrendous.
The more important lesson of course is that humans are capable of events this horrendous. I did gasp on several occasions.
Interesting that the practicalities of mass murder were presented as a design issue, a problem to be solved, a "final solution" to the "Jewish question." And I understood why, on some occasions, young chemical engineers for example were brought in to solve them. The joy of the problem-solving engineer, it seems can be entirely divorced from the horror of what the problem is. In certain cases. That was just an interesting lesson for me, a young chemical engineer. And maybe that, on a smaller scale, if someone knows you enjoy being good at something, they might offer you that joy as a way of manipulating you into doing something you don't want to. Appearing weak is an obvious one, because people love to help and often do so at the expense of themselves...
The Jewish race, by the way, was defined as being held by those whose grandparents practiced the Jewish religion—which means no definition could be created that pinned "Jewishness" to an actual race. And the definition slipped and evolved, too. It seems that Nazis so enjoyed genocide that they would've kept making new definitions just to keep it going—while anything was tolerated amongst the Nazi's own ranks, such as homosexuality. Similarly, anti-Semitic Germans who met Jews they didn't know were Jews were certain that these Jews were not in fact Jews—or rather, not the Jews they directed their hatred towards. Ie, only by completely dehumanising the other could they condone the mass murders—if they knew about them at all. The SS communicated with each other in code, and vehemently denied that they were suggesting murder, since they knew it would "look bad." Hitler himself gave woolly instructions, goals without methods, because he didn't care what they were. And one of the problems of the murders was the traumatising effect it had on the people carrying it out.
I had to skim towards the end, which is offensive in itself, I guess—but it just became swathes of numbers, locations. Seems so unreal. Something about 6 million Jews seems possible and yet if you break it down in to 45,000 in this location, 17,000 in this location you think... Hang on: in how many places was this happening, over how long, involving how many compliant people? Astoundingly disgusting. But anti-Semitism was already widespread, it seems. There was no way Hitler could've forced people to do something they had no inkling for at all–he had to gradually push their thoughts to the extreme (the principle of the Overton window, of which contemporary white supremacists are well aware.)
Made for an interesting two days reading for sure.
February 17, 2020
Once a year I go on my Holocaust spree... wait, that didn't sound good.
I meant to say that over a few weeks, I binge on Holocaust literature, both fiction and documentary.
During that period, I also watch related movies. You know, the usual suspects. Schindler's List, The Pianist...
There may be some deep, personal reasons. Or maybe it's much more simple than that. And universal.
I watch myself doing it, and it's perfectly clear what I try to accomplish: to really get to the bottom of it, go to the frontiers of my limited capacities for understanding these ultimate questions of humanity and get something close to an answer: why?
And the answer seems to be always the same. Paradoxically, it's the same reason I'm always, intellectually and emotionally, being pulled back into the abyss of Holocaust. Because we're human. As such, we're capable of both endless good and evil.
Something in me needs to live, vicariously, of course, through these scenes of unimaginable horror, utter, despicable evil one human being is capable of doing to another. I believe that trying to wrap my mind around worst, systematic, engineered evil in history does something to me that puts me in my place. So I bitch less about "white people problems" of today like planned obsolescence of consumer electronics and cars. Because, only a few decades ago, handful of so called intellectuals, some of them with no less than doctorate degrees, were plotting planned obsolescence of living human beings.
That handful of perfect representatives of human dreck just orchestrated the music, but they struck a chord in millions of Germans who kept playing the soundtrack of horror that would put Psycho to shame, as conductor kept wiggling his pathetic little stick. And that's the worst, most concerning thing.
Holocaust didn't happen at once. It didn't just explode. It's series of escalating moments that led to it. Nazis were slow brewing their own people in the hatred against Jews. And every time, those who should have protested, didn't. For great evil to emerge, it just takes a good man to do nothing.
Be careful not to do nothing when you should be doing something. Especially when doing something means saying NO.
I meant to say that over a few weeks, I binge on Holocaust literature, both fiction and documentary.
During that period, I also watch related movies. You know, the usual suspects. Schindler's List, The Pianist...
There may be some deep, personal reasons. Or maybe it's much more simple than that. And universal.
I watch myself doing it, and it's perfectly clear what I try to accomplish: to really get to the bottom of it, go to the frontiers of my limited capacities for understanding these ultimate questions of humanity and get something close to an answer: why?
And the answer seems to be always the same. Paradoxically, it's the same reason I'm always, intellectually and emotionally, being pulled back into the abyss of Holocaust. Because we're human. As such, we're capable of both endless good and evil.
Something in me needs to live, vicariously, of course, through these scenes of unimaginable horror, utter, despicable evil one human being is capable of doing to another. I believe that trying to wrap my mind around worst, systematic, engineered evil in history does something to me that puts me in my place. So I bitch less about "white people problems" of today like planned obsolescence of consumer electronics and cars. Because, only a few decades ago, handful of so called intellectuals, some of them with no less than doctorate degrees, were plotting planned obsolescence of living human beings.
That handful of perfect representatives of human dreck just orchestrated the music, but they struck a chord in millions of Germans who kept playing the soundtrack of horror that would put Psycho to shame, as conductor kept wiggling his pathetic little stick. And that's the worst, most concerning thing.
Holocaust didn't happen at once. It didn't just explode. It's series of escalating moments that led to it. Nazis were slow brewing their own people in the hatred against Jews. And every time, those who should have protested, didn't. For great evil to emerge, it just takes a good man to do nothing.
Be careful not to do nothing when you should be doing something. Especially when doing something means saying NO.
February 19, 2017
The Nazis actually blamed Western democracies of not doing enough to tackle their Jewish problem. How could they accept the western high moral stance when they were equally responsible for racial segregation in their own countries and colonies?
They also used the Jewish issue as a common denominator to forge common ties with any country wanting to deal with their own Jewish menace.
The west was blackmailed on their moral higher stance, if Germany went to war than the Jews would pay a high price, and it would be all your fault, as all they were doing was mere speeches!
Anti Semitic policy of Nazis created a world in which any idea, no matter how radicle or eccentric could be floated and discussed. No ethical restrictions held them back apart from practical considerations.
The political reference has also become clear for me, the far Right ideologies rely on pure practicality as guide to implement their policies while the far Left ideologies use humanity.
Lastly, I could not read this book without making parallels with the current wave of Islamophobia afflicting the Western world. Although I cannot believe that any sane government can go ahead and apply anti-Muslim policies like the Nazis, but then most the the people during WW2 also could not believe the Jewish atrocities as well......
They also used the Jewish issue as a common denominator to forge common ties with any country wanting to deal with their own Jewish menace.
The west was blackmailed on their moral higher stance, if Germany went to war than the Jews would pay a high price, and it would be all your fault, as all they were doing was mere speeches!
Anti Semitic policy of Nazis created a world in which any idea, no matter how radicle or eccentric could be floated and discussed. No ethical restrictions held them back apart from practical considerations.
The political reference has also become clear for me, the far Right ideologies rely on pure practicality as guide to implement their policies while the far Left ideologies use humanity.
Lastly, I could not read this book without making parallels with the current wave of Islamophobia afflicting the Western world. Although I cannot believe that any sane government can go ahead and apply anti-Muslim policies like the Nazis, but then most the the people during WW2 also could not believe the Jewish atrocities as well......
May 10, 2020
This was the clearest narrative about the Holocaust I’ve ever read and Rees makes a point of making the book readable for all.
Combining factual statistics with first hand narrative from survivors of the Holocaust, Rees horrifyingly depicts the end of World War One and Germany’s socio-economic standing your explain how World War Two started and the eventual establishing of the Holocaust.
This book contained so much detail that is left out of popular history and really blew me away. This was also one of the heaviest books I’ve ever read as Rees spares no detail in explaining the reality for millions of Jews, Gypsies and prisoners of war.
Combining factual statistics with first hand narrative from survivors of the Holocaust, Rees horrifyingly depicts the end of World War One and Germany’s socio-economic standing your explain how World War Two started and the eventual establishing of the Holocaust.
This book contained so much detail that is left out of popular history and really blew me away. This was also one of the heaviest books I’ve ever read as Rees spares no detail in explaining the reality for millions of Jews, Gypsies and prisoners of war.
March 28, 2022
After reading a few Holocaust memoirs in January, I realized most of what I knew about the Holocaust came from individual stories, rather than a large-scale picture of the indescribable tragedy. As a historian (though not one who focuses on modern European history) in a time when antisemitism is again on the rise, I am compelled to learn more about the Holocaust. As a human being, I want to remember it so it will not be forgotten. Understanding the history of the Holocaust from a broader perspective is helpful when encountering Holocaust denialism, or those ignorant of the Holocaust who make thoughtless and hurtful comparisons to their own sufferings.
Rees subtitled The Holocaust a “new history” because much of what he publishes here had never been made public before. He is a journalist, and spent much of his career interviewing former Nazis and survivors of the Holocaust. He’s traveled to many of the historic sites, and made a special point of interviewing people behind the Iron Curtain after the Soviet Union fell, thus preserving stories that may otherwise have been lost. Yet, his cross-research is extensive, as he drew on period documents, speeches, diaries, and other records. His geographic research is shown in maps. Photographs are, of course, included. The most chilling one for me was of a group of mirthful Auschwitz employees, laughing and posing alongside an accordionist. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
The early portion of this book details the intellectual and political culture of Europe post-WWI, which paved the way for the Holocaust. A while ago I read John Carey’s The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939, which puts forward a similar argument to Rees’s. The ideal of the Nietzschean superman, combined with revulsion for “the masses,” created an intellectual culture in which one group of people could identify with the Übermensch and look down upon everyone else. (Carey’s and Rees’s arguments are much more nuanced and obviously more developed.) Understanding this helps us understand why rhetoric like Hitler’s found an audience, and why the Third Reich was so quick to eliminate those they deemed unworthy of life, not just Jewish people, but also the elderly, infirm, disabled, and so forth. Rees does detail mass killings of non-Jewish people, including those of Sinti and Roma ancestry, and early efforts to eliminate elderly and disabled people.
For all the atrocities related in these pages, The Holocaust is surprisingly readable. Rees is not bogged down by too much detail or narratival posturing. He relates historical fact clearly and intentionally. I think his background in journalism helped him here. Though the book is quite long, nothing seems superfluous. It’s not academically written, as Rees does make some personal comments here and there, but that helped me keeped reading, because it reminded me that a fellow human was relating this. Prior to picking up this book, I was not unschooled in the tragedies of Nazism, but there were horrors within that surprised me.
As for content warnings, it took me well over a month to get through this book because I had to keep going outside to touch grass (or snow) or read something sunny for a change. No one wants to know this kind of stuff, horrors that I can’t even bring myself to speak of though I am so far removed from them. All I want to do after reading this book is to find the happiest, most Jewish book ever and clutch it to my heart. Though millions of Jewish lives were lost to the Holocaust, Hitler did not succeed in his goal of eliminating Judaism from the world. Celebrate Jewish culture, defy Hitler. A win-win.
Below I have written out some things I want to remember from this book, but am tagging as spoilers because it gets a bit disturbing. After the spoiler, a brief note about Ukraine, because Putin’s “denazification” rhetoric has sent me on many IRL rants about moronic propaganda.
Reading this during Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was poignant. His empty rhetoric about “denazification” rings hollow when one knows that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, and lost family members to the Holocaust. For context, the fictional village of Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof is in modern-day Ukraine. Putin’s “denazification” rhetoric is a weak ploy that he has already dropped. The Soviet Union, despite its Red Army liberating Auschwitz Birkenau and other camps, denied the Holocaust, making it plain why Putin chose to bomb Babi Yar (aka Babin/Babyn Yar). According to the US Holocaust Museum, “The first such incident to be labeled a pogrom is believed to be anti-Jewish rioting in Odessa [in modern-day Ukraine] in 1821,” well over one hundred years before the Nazi party came to power in Germany. Rees refers to the Babi Yar murders as a “killing on a scale that no death camp matched over a similar period.” (223) It’s important to note that some of the perpetrators of this massacre were local Ukrainian volunteers, and that many Ukrainians became complicit in Nazi war crimes by joining up rather than risking death. It’s an impossible choice, and I do not judge them, but all this is to say, Ukraine has a textured history when it comes to Nazism and exploiting it for one’s war of aggression is both cruel and foolish. To end on a note of hope, I want to highlight the countries who welcomed Ukrainian refugees with open arms, dropping all quotas to receive those fleeing war. This is what should have been done to prevent the Holocaust, according to Rees. International cooperation is essential to preserving lives in situations like this.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum article on pogroms
USHMM article on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union: "Much of our work focuses on the home of the Soviet Union’s largest Jewish population on the eve of the Nazi invasion—Ukraine."
Rees subtitled The Holocaust a “new history” because much of what he publishes here had never been made public before. He is a journalist, and spent much of his career interviewing former Nazis and survivors of the Holocaust. He’s traveled to many of the historic sites, and made a special point of interviewing people behind the Iron Curtain after the Soviet Union fell, thus preserving stories that may otherwise have been lost. Yet, his cross-research is extensive, as he drew on period documents, speeches, diaries, and other records. His geographic research is shown in maps. Photographs are, of course, included. The most chilling one for me was of a group of mirthful Auschwitz employees, laughing and posing alongside an accordionist. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
The early portion of this book details the intellectual and political culture of Europe post-WWI, which paved the way for the Holocaust. A while ago I read John Carey’s The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939, which puts forward a similar argument to Rees’s. The ideal of the Nietzschean superman, combined with revulsion for “the masses,” created an intellectual culture in which one group of people could identify with the Übermensch and look down upon everyone else. (Carey’s and Rees’s arguments are much more nuanced and obviously more developed.) Understanding this helps us understand why rhetoric like Hitler’s found an audience, and why the Third Reich was so quick to eliminate those they deemed unworthy of life, not just Jewish people, but also the elderly, infirm, disabled, and so forth. Rees does detail mass killings of non-Jewish people, including those of Sinti and Roma ancestry, and early efforts to eliminate elderly and disabled people.
For all the atrocities related in these pages, The Holocaust is surprisingly readable. Rees is not bogged down by too much detail or narratival posturing. He relates historical fact clearly and intentionally. I think his background in journalism helped him here. Though the book is quite long, nothing seems superfluous. It’s not academically written, as Rees does make some personal comments here and there, but that helped me keeped reading, because it reminded me that a fellow human was relating this. Prior to picking up this book, I was not unschooled in the tragedies of Nazism, but there were horrors within that surprised me.
As for content warnings, it took me well over a month to get through this book because I had to keep going outside to touch grass (or snow) or read something sunny for a change. No one wants to know this kind of stuff, horrors that I can’t even bring myself to speak of though I am so far removed from them. All I want to do after reading this book is to find the happiest, most Jewish book ever and clutch it to my heart. Though millions of Jewish lives were lost to the Holocaust, Hitler did not succeed in his goal of eliminating Judaism from the world. Celebrate Jewish culture, defy Hitler. A win-win.
Below I have written out some things I want to remember from this book, but am tagging as spoilers because it gets a bit disturbing. After the spoiler, a brief note about Ukraine, because Putin’s “denazification” rhetoric has sent me on many IRL rants about moronic propaganda.
Reading this during Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was poignant. His empty rhetoric about “denazification” rings hollow when one knows that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, and lost family members to the Holocaust. For context, the fictional village of Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof is in modern-day Ukraine. Putin’s “denazification” rhetoric is a weak ploy that he has already dropped. The Soviet Union, despite its Red Army liberating Auschwitz Birkenau and other camps, denied the Holocaust, making it plain why Putin chose to bomb Babi Yar (aka Babin/Babyn Yar). According to the US Holocaust Museum, “The first such incident to be labeled a pogrom is believed to be anti-Jewish rioting in Odessa [in modern-day Ukraine] in 1821,” well over one hundred years before the Nazi party came to power in Germany. Rees refers to the Babi Yar murders as a “killing on a scale that no death camp matched over a similar period.” (223) It’s important to note that some of the perpetrators of this massacre were local Ukrainian volunteers, and that many Ukrainians became complicit in Nazi war crimes by joining up rather than risking death. It’s an impossible choice, and I do not judge them, but all this is to say, Ukraine has a textured history when it comes to Nazism and exploiting it for one’s war of aggression is both cruel and foolish. To end on a note of hope, I want to highlight the countries who welcomed Ukrainian refugees with open arms, dropping all quotas to receive those fleeing war. This is what should have been done to prevent the Holocaust, according to Rees. International cooperation is essential to preserving lives in situations like this.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum article on pogroms
USHMM article on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union: "Much of our work focuses on the home of the Soviet Union’s largest Jewish population on the eve of the Nazi invasion—Ukraine."
February 6, 2017
The greatest lesson we have learned, that should have been self-evident from the start, we are in this together, whatever this is. I would call this a brilliantly crafted narrative that really does everything Lawrence Rees wanted it to do. How a premise such as the Nazi's provided for their desired actions got a foothold in society can only really be explained by the incremental steps posited in Holocaust. If someone were to propose the extinction of a subset of Europe because the Ukrainian peasants, Polish coal miners, Dutch teachers and French dentists were in cahoots to install an international theocratic Jewish superstate could it have gained traction? Or in fact does that sound like the plan of the National Socialist trying to install a German superstate from Belgium to the Asian steppe?
I have never read anything written about the Holocaust until now that got the fine balance this book achieves. Mr Rees knows the facts speak for themselves and he tries to allow them and the reader work it out. I am one of those who believe everyone should know this story, and this is the way to do that.
Hitlers attitude and actions are the largest amplification yet of the fear, ignorance and opportunism that generates racism but we are all susceptible to it and need to recognise and have it pointed out so that our own ill-gotten prejudices do not inform our actions. Hopefully we'll spot it on time next time.
I just watched a movie about Heydrich's assassination (Anthropoid) that fails to mention his crimes before his job in Prague and gives the impression that non-Jews were being deported to Poland. And so it goes.....
I have never read anything written about the Holocaust until now that got the fine balance this book achieves. Mr Rees knows the facts speak for themselves and he tries to allow them and the reader work it out. I am one of those who believe everyone should know this story, and this is the way to do that.
Hitlers attitude and actions are the largest amplification yet of the fear, ignorance and opportunism that generates racism but we are all susceptible to it and need to recognise and have it pointed out so that our own ill-gotten prejudices do not inform our actions. Hopefully we'll spot it on time next time.
I just watched a movie about Heydrich's assassination (Anthropoid) that fails to mention his crimes before his job in Prague and gives the impression that non-Jews were being deported to Poland. And so it goes.....
November 2, 2024
Дуже темна, складна, важкезна книга. Читати її варто, але лише у тому випадку, якщо маєте сили і вмієте про себе подбати. Це не лише про Голокост, а про зло, яке знаходить аргументи, інструменти та людей-прислужників.
October 25, 2021
Seguramente um dos livros mais impressionantes que já li. Difícil até encontrar elogios suficientes. É a obra de uma vida. Aqui, Laurence Rees faz uma obra geral, mas toda fundada em fontes – inclusive entrevistas com testemunhas. A partir das fontes ele produz uma riquíssima análise daquilo que veio a ser conhecido como Holocausto, i.e., o assassinato deliberado de um inteiro grupo étnico a partir da criação de todo um aparato burocrático criado para levar o projeto adiante. É claro que o Estado nacional-socialista era por natureza homicida – mataram pessoas com deficiência, opositores de várias cores políticas, minorias como os ciganos ou vastos grupos étnicos como os eslavos –, mas, no entanto, a principal parte de seu ódio era direcionado aos judeus.
A parte complicada da história – e talvez seja esse o grande mérito do livro – é o de tentar encontrar uma compreensão do que de fato aconteceu. Não é coisa fácil, mas me parece que Rees foi muito bem-sucedido nesse propósito. Não é fácil inclusive porque muito do que aconteceu na Alemanha entre 1920 e 1945 não pode ser compreendido dentro daquilo que a gente qualifica um tanto quanto simplificadamente como ‘normalidade’. Havia raízes históricas de antissemitismo e autoritarismo tanto na história alemã quanto na europeia, mas é claro que não explica, mesmo porque apesar de manifestações racistas, o próprio Rees ressalta que antes da Primeira Guerra era muito mais seguro para um judeu viver na Alemanha do que, por exemplo, na Rússia. Além disso, vários países europeus – caso de Polônia, Hungria e Romênia – aprovaram leis antissemitas nos anos 1930.
O nacional-socialismo, é claro, se desenvolveu porque havia um terreno em que ele poderia se desenvolver e havia vários outros elementos envolvidos. De qualquer modo, a liderança alemã da época encontrou a sua melhor descrição nas palavras do subsecretário de Estado americano, que já em 1933 fez a seguinte descrição:
“Com raras exceções, os homens que comandam esse governo têm um jeito de pensar que eu e você não somos capazes de entender. Alguns deles são casos psicopáticos e, em condições normais, estariam recebendo tratamento em algum lugar”. No círculo mais alto do poder, como observa Rees, “o que emerge [de uma reunião de líderes nazistas] é um mundo no qual qualquer ideia, por mais radical ou excêntrica que fosse, podia ser apresentada e discutida”.
Essa abertura das portas do inferno, por assim dizer, também permitiu que o pior das pessoas também aflorasse: se não fosse a guerra, muito possivelmente muitos desses funcionários de baixo escalão teriam passado pela vida despercebidos. Em muitos casos, antes do nazismo, nada havia que indicasse que pessoas, digamos, ‘comuns’, se tornariam assassinos sádicos.
Isso leva a uma outra discussão. O inevitável papel de Hitler. Rees lembra que Ian Kershaw, autor de uma respeitada biografia do líder nazista, argumenta que não teria havido holocausto sem Hitler. Mas, em razão da própria natureza caótica da organização político-burocrática do estado nazista, Rees afirma que “No contexto do Holocausto, o principal papel de Hitler foi estabelecer uma visão”. Aspectos mais práticos foram deixados aos níveis burocráticos mais baixos. Isso implica que não houve um momento decisivo. Na verdade, observa Rees, houve vários momentos decisivos. A cada momento se aproveitava para aumentar a aposta em direção a ações cada vez mais sangrentas. Além disso, ao deixar para os níveis burocráticos um espaço muito grande para decisão, houve uma diversidade muito grande de métodos para cumprir essa visão hitlerista. Diga-se de passagem, aliás, que a maioria dos judeus foram assassinados fora dos campos de extermínio. Aqui, uma distinção importante: a distinção entre campos de concentração e de extermínio. Nos segundos, pouquíssimos sobreviventes e, por isso mesmo, esses campos são menos conhecidos. Havia quase ninguém que depois pudesse falar a respeito deles.
Também, muito do trabalho dos nazistas dependeu do apoio das populações e governos dos países ocupados, tanto na Europa do leste quanto do oeste. Por outro lado, muitas vezes sobreviventes contaram com a ajuda decisiva de estranhos e a própria sobrevivência dependia de um misto de acaso e inteligência.
Enfim, uma leitura densa, de uma obra construída para o leitor comum, mesmo que fundada em um trabalho historiográfico rigoroso e baseado em fontes primárias.
Uma leitura que nos explica muito, mesmo que no fim ainda nos deixe cheios de dúvidas a respeito das profundezas do abismo da alma humana.
A parte complicada da história – e talvez seja esse o grande mérito do livro – é o de tentar encontrar uma compreensão do que de fato aconteceu. Não é coisa fácil, mas me parece que Rees foi muito bem-sucedido nesse propósito. Não é fácil inclusive porque muito do que aconteceu na Alemanha entre 1920 e 1945 não pode ser compreendido dentro daquilo que a gente qualifica um tanto quanto simplificadamente como ‘normalidade’. Havia raízes históricas de antissemitismo e autoritarismo tanto na história alemã quanto na europeia, mas é claro que não explica, mesmo porque apesar de manifestações racistas, o próprio Rees ressalta que antes da Primeira Guerra era muito mais seguro para um judeu viver na Alemanha do que, por exemplo, na Rússia. Além disso, vários países europeus – caso de Polônia, Hungria e Romênia – aprovaram leis antissemitas nos anos 1930.
O nacional-socialismo, é claro, se desenvolveu porque havia um terreno em que ele poderia se desenvolver e havia vários outros elementos envolvidos. De qualquer modo, a liderança alemã da época encontrou a sua melhor descrição nas palavras do subsecretário de Estado americano, que já em 1933 fez a seguinte descrição:
“Com raras exceções, os homens que comandam esse governo têm um jeito de pensar que eu e você não somos capazes de entender. Alguns deles são casos psicopáticos e, em condições normais, estariam recebendo tratamento em algum lugar”. No círculo mais alto do poder, como observa Rees, “o que emerge [de uma reunião de líderes nazistas] é um mundo no qual qualquer ideia, por mais radical ou excêntrica que fosse, podia ser apresentada e discutida”.
Essa abertura das portas do inferno, por assim dizer, também permitiu que o pior das pessoas também aflorasse: se não fosse a guerra, muito possivelmente muitos desses funcionários de baixo escalão teriam passado pela vida despercebidos. Em muitos casos, antes do nazismo, nada havia que indicasse que pessoas, digamos, ‘comuns’, se tornariam assassinos sádicos.
Isso leva a uma outra discussão. O inevitável papel de Hitler. Rees lembra que Ian Kershaw, autor de uma respeitada biografia do líder nazista, argumenta que não teria havido holocausto sem Hitler. Mas, em razão da própria natureza caótica da organização político-burocrática do estado nazista, Rees afirma que “No contexto do Holocausto, o principal papel de Hitler foi estabelecer uma visão”. Aspectos mais práticos foram deixados aos níveis burocráticos mais baixos. Isso implica que não houve um momento decisivo. Na verdade, observa Rees, houve vários momentos decisivos. A cada momento se aproveitava para aumentar a aposta em direção a ações cada vez mais sangrentas. Além disso, ao deixar para os níveis burocráticos um espaço muito grande para decisão, houve uma diversidade muito grande de métodos para cumprir essa visão hitlerista. Diga-se de passagem, aliás, que a maioria dos judeus foram assassinados fora dos campos de extermínio. Aqui, uma distinção importante: a distinção entre campos de concentração e de extermínio. Nos segundos, pouquíssimos sobreviventes e, por isso mesmo, esses campos são menos conhecidos. Havia quase ninguém que depois pudesse falar a respeito deles.
Também, muito do trabalho dos nazistas dependeu do apoio das populações e governos dos países ocupados, tanto na Europa do leste quanto do oeste. Por outro lado, muitas vezes sobreviventes contaram com a ajuda decisiva de estranhos e a própria sobrevivência dependia de um misto de acaso e inteligência.
Enfim, uma leitura densa, de uma obra construída para o leitor comum, mesmo que fundada em um trabalho historiográfico rigoroso e baseado em fontes primárias.
Uma leitura que nos explica muito, mesmo que no fim ainda nos deixe cheios de dúvidas a respeito das profundezas do abismo da alma humana.
April 8, 2017
An excellent history of the Holocaust.
Clearly written, with many examples, witness testimonies and analysis.
At the center stands the question of how the Holocaust happened. For Rees, there was nothing inevitable about it. While Hitler was an exceptionally vicious anti-Semite from the start of his political career – calling for the “uncompromising removal” of Jews as early as 1919 – he had no master plan for murder. Nazi policy followed a twisted road, with plenty of stops, starts and turns, before heading towards mass extermination. And even then, there was no single order from the top. Hitler set the direction, to be sure, but he left his underlings to devise ever more extreme measures to realize his vision. There were great variations across Europe, depending on local circumstances, leading the Nazis to implement the Holocaust “ in radically different ways in different countries.”.
The book's title claims it is a new history, and I expected to find new insights and points of view that I have not seen before. This I did not find. While I am no expert on the subject, I have read a few books about the subject, and while this is an excellent book, I did not find anything revolutionary about it.
Bottom line… If you have not read any book about the subject , this is an excellent book. If you have read allot and are looking for a new point of view, this book, in my opinion, will probably not change your understanding of the Holocaust.
Clearly written, with many examples, witness testimonies and analysis.
At the center stands the question of how the Holocaust happened. For Rees, there was nothing inevitable about it. While Hitler was an exceptionally vicious anti-Semite from the start of his political career – calling for the “uncompromising removal” of Jews as early as 1919 – he had no master plan for murder. Nazi policy followed a twisted road, with plenty of stops, starts and turns, before heading towards mass extermination. And even then, there was no single order from the top. Hitler set the direction, to be sure, but he left his underlings to devise ever more extreme measures to realize his vision. There were great variations across Europe, depending on local circumstances, leading the Nazis to implement the Holocaust “ in radically different ways in different countries.”.
The book's title claims it is a new history, and I expected to find new insights and points of view that I have not seen before. This I did not find. While I am no expert on the subject, I have read a few books about the subject, and while this is an excellent book, I did not find anything revolutionary about it.
Bottom line… If you have not read any book about the subject , this is an excellent book. If you have read allot and are looking for a new point of view, this book, in my opinion, will probably not change your understanding of the Holocaust.
January 24, 2024
One of the most enlightening Holocaust books I have read, and I've read quite a few over the years. Rees starts at the very beginning, (straight after WWI). Each detailed chapter shows the progress of one damaged individual over a ten year period leading up to the start of WWII, then each chapter progresses through the destruction and expansion of Hitler's war machine.
I think this should be mandatory reading for anyone under 30 that has no knowledge of this history, as it really highlights the danger that can be caused by one unstable person in a position of power and how much damage can come from an unstable leader of a country, not only does it affect their country but it can cause the destruction of many countries and their peoples. Truly frightening!
I think this should be mandatory reading for anyone under 30 that has no knowledge of this history, as it really highlights the danger that can be caused by one unstable person in a position of power and how much damage can come from an unstable leader of a country, not only does it affect their country but it can cause the destruction of many countries and their peoples. Truly frightening!
February 16, 2020
Completamente sobrecogedor. Una montaña de horrores, que muestra una idea central: el Holocausto empezó mucho antes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, nunca tuvo un plan ni un único responsable, más allá de su impulsor, que fue Hitler. Nunca hubo una idea clara de qué se quería hacer o cómo, y fue mutando conforme iba avanzando la guerra y la situación cambiaba. Esto lo hace quizá más horrible aún: no hubo un plan maestro de villanos, sólo una mediocre maraña de burócratas grises y absurdos, obcecados en una idea irracional.
En un momento como este, libros así son necesarios.
En un momento como este, libros así son necesarios.
February 25, 2021
It was in a second-hand store in Denmark where I came across this brilliant, but at the same time solemn book. I bought it without a doubt, being confident that I will read it.
So, the same day I started to read it. From the beginning, I found the book captivating. I thought, who is this man Laurence Rees that writes about such a complex issue in an understanding way?! He revealed the whole Holocaust in a real way. Drawing not only from speeches, diaries, and documents of that time, Rees made the pages palpable of fear, suffering, and death from the testimonies of eyewitness
I have never read a better book than this. (So I also bought his newest book - "Hitler and Stalin").
Because of this masterpiece, I was stirred to watch the two Oscar-winning movies on this subject - Schindler`s List and The Pianist. The words in Rees`s book became even more tragic.
The first chapters of the book introduced WW2. It was the calm before the storm. And the reading seemed to go smoothly. However, after the description of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, it was not easy to keep on reading, even though this book was a "page-turner." I can explain it with an example of how I watched the HBO TV series Chernobyl. Even though it was only 5 episodes, and it could been finished in one day, it was not possible because of the gruesome scenes. Well, the same was with several chapters in the Holocaust book, sometimes even paragraphs, when a crime took place against humanity. Some of the crimes Rees displayed should not ever happen against any human being.
The last sentence of the book is this: "...Seventy years, I cannot get over it. I cannot get over the evil." These words are from a survivor, who at the timr was age 18 years old, could not comprehend what a human being is actually capable of doing. What strikes me the most about the Holocaust, is that most of the Nazis who committed this outrageous evil were intelligent men and women. Humans with education.
Another unjustifiable fact was regarding some of the Christian acts during this period. It is well known that Pope at the time refused to condemn publicly the deportation and extermination of the Jews. Not only that, the President of Slovakia - Jozef Tiso - who was actually a Roman Catholic priest, was involved in deporting Jews from Slovakia. These two examples serve me as an example that only because one calls himself Christian, does not imply, that he is an actual follower of Christ. Damn it. How many wolves are out there in the world dressed in sheep clothing?
Alright, enough with venting.
In conclusion, I must say that I appreciated the process of reading this book, even though my heart became sad at times, Rees did his work to present, as he calls it, "the Nazi persecution of the Jews" exceptionally well.
So, the same day I started to read it. From the beginning, I found the book captivating. I thought, who is this man Laurence Rees that writes about such a complex issue in an understanding way?! He revealed the whole Holocaust in a real way. Drawing not only from speeches, diaries, and documents of that time, Rees made the pages palpable of fear, suffering, and death from the testimonies of eyewitness
I have never read a better book than this. (So I also bought his newest book - "Hitler and Stalin").
Because of this masterpiece, I was stirred to watch the two Oscar-winning movies on this subject - Schindler`s List and The Pianist. The words in Rees`s book became even more tragic.
The first chapters of the book introduced WW2. It was the calm before the storm. And the reading seemed to go smoothly. However, after the description of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, it was not easy to keep on reading, even though this book was a "page-turner." I can explain it with an example of how I watched the HBO TV series Chernobyl. Even though it was only 5 episodes, and it could been finished in one day, it was not possible because of the gruesome scenes. Well, the same was with several chapters in the Holocaust book, sometimes even paragraphs, when a crime took place against humanity. Some of the crimes Rees displayed should not ever happen against any human being.
The last sentence of the book is this: "...Seventy years, I cannot get over it. I cannot get over the evil." These words are from a survivor, who at the timr was age 18 years old, could not comprehend what a human being is actually capable of doing. What strikes me the most about the Holocaust, is that most of the Nazis who committed this outrageous evil were intelligent men and women. Humans with education.
Another unjustifiable fact was regarding some of the Christian acts during this period. It is well known that Pope at the time refused to condemn publicly the deportation and extermination of the Jews. Not only that, the President of Slovakia - Jozef Tiso - who was actually a Roman Catholic priest, was involved in deporting Jews from Slovakia. These two examples serve me as an example that only because one calls himself Christian, does not imply, that he is an actual follower of Christ. Damn it. How many wolves are out there in the world dressed in sheep clothing?
Alright, enough with venting.
In conclusion, I must say that I appreciated the process of reading this book, even though my heart became sad at times, Rees did his work to present, as he calls it, "the Nazi persecution of the Jews" exceptionally well.
July 30, 2024
First-off, if you already know and have read many books about hitler, WW2, and the concentration camps, the Holocaust and the medical experiments, apart from what I will write in my next sentence, there is not much new here or things we haven’t heard of. This book does give us more recollections from people Rees has interviewed, so if you want to read more first-hand accounts and memories, then read this book.
The second unique point this book makes that I had never heard before speculates on why hitler committed the Holocaust.
The argument goes that the nazis were using Jewish people as hostages and killing as many Jews as possible to try blackmailing the allies into ending the war with some sort of peace treaty.
I suppose we will never know because we do not know what was in hitler’s mind if you consider a few things:
1. He was the ultimate decision-maker in the reich.
2. We know that he supposedly was on cocaine and other stimulants.
3. He was so out of touch with reality that he was playing with his little models of his new reich capital germania despite the fact the Russians were virtually in Berlin.
What is also interesting, I always laugh when I read this remark that another historian made.
hitler promised the people that, no matter what, he would never abandon them and always be accountable to them, and yet, when it came to the push, he did just that by committing suicide and leaving the Germans to face the aftermath.
Oh yeah, back to the book.
If you want a good intro to the Holocaust or don’t know much about it, this book is also absolutely great for doing that.
The second unique point this book makes that I had never heard before speculates on why hitler committed the Holocaust.
The argument goes that the nazis were using Jewish people as hostages and killing as many Jews as possible to try blackmailing the allies into ending the war with some sort of peace treaty.
I suppose we will never know because we do not know what was in hitler’s mind if you consider a few things:
1. He was the ultimate decision-maker in the reich.
2. We know that he supposedly was on cocaine and other stimulants.
3. He was so out of touch with reality that he was playing with his little models of his new reich capital germania despite the fact the Russians were virtually in Berlin.
What is also interesting, I always laugh when I read this remark that another historian made.
hitler promised the people that, no matter what, he would never abandon them and always be accountable to them, and yet, when it came to the push, he did just that by committing suicide and leaving the Germans to face the aftermath.
Oh yeah, back to the book.
If you want a good intro to the Holocaust or don’t know much about it, this book is also absolutely great for doing that.
February 12, 2021
*****
Definitivamente a minha melhor leitura neste ano até o momento. O livro é de fácil compreensão, o que o torna uma ótima porta de entrada para quem pouco ou nada sabe sobre o desenvolvimento geral da Alemanha Nazista.
Em 600 páginas o livro cobre os anos de 1919(o "começo" da carreira de Hitler) até 1945(fim da segunda guerra), expondo como se deu a ascensão do nazismo na Alemanha, e o gradual desenvolvimento de um processo de perseguição sistemática contra os Judeus, abordando desde o surgimento de políticas raciais, até o nascimento e destruição de alguns dos principais campos de concentração do Terceiro Reich, assim como os motivos que levaram às políticas de extermínio. O livro conta com depoimentos tanto de judeus sobreviventes, relatando o que viveram dentro e fora dos campos, como também com depoimentos de ex-nazistas relatando suas visões do mundo na época.
Um excelente trabalho escrito de maneira rica e didática que agrega ao leitor uma visão ampla da situação, mas tendo por foco logicamente, o desenvolvimento e intensificação do crime singular que levou a morte milhões de pessoas, pode-se sentir falta de aprofundamento em alguns tópicos um pouco exteriores a questão do extermínio cujo autor as vezes não discorre muito sobre ou não cita, como por exemplo o atentado a Hitler em 20 de julho, ou o casamento deste com Eva Braun, um aprofundamento sobre Mengele em Auschwitz, o envolvimento do Japão na segunda guerra, e um aprofundamento na relação Hitler-Mussolini, mas como já dito, o foco do livro é o crime em si, portanto exigir demais outras informações acaba sendo uma questão meramente pessoal, já que o livro se mantém conciso no que propõe, assim, no meu caso acabou me instigando a querer me aprofundar cada vez mais em alguns temas.
Os relatos pessoais de sobreviventes(como pode-se imaginar, as vezes extremamente fortes e sensíveis) mesclados com os diários, cartas e discursos de alguns dos principais nazistas(como Eichmann, Goebbels, Himmler), e uma imensa pesquisa acadêmica, geográfica e política, fazem do livro um espetacular documento histórico.
Definitivamente a minha melhor leitura neste ano até o momento. O livro é de fácil compreensão, o que o torna uma ótima porta de entrada para quem pouco ou nada sabe sobre o desenvolvimento geral da Alemanha Nazista.
Em 600 páginas o livro cobre os anos de 1919(o "começo" da carreira de Hitler) até 1945(fim da segunda guerra), expondo como se deu a ascensão do nazismo na Alemanha, e o gradual desenvolvimento de um processo de perseguição sistemática contra os Judeus, abordando desde o surgimento de políticas raciais, até o nascimento e destruição de alguns dos principais campos de concentração do Terceiro Reich, assim como os motivos que levaram às políticas de extermínio. O livro conta com depoimentos tanto de judeus sobreviventes, relatando o que viveram dentro e fora dos campos, como também com depoimentos de ex-nazistas relatando suas visões do mundo na época.
Um excelente trabalho escrito de maneira rica e didática que agrega ao leitor uma visão ampla da situação, mas tendo por foco logicamente, o desenvolvimento e intensificação do crime singular que levou a morte milhões de pessoas, pode-se sentir falta de aprofundamento em alguns tópicos um pouco exteriores a questão do extermínio cujo autor as vezes não discorre muito sobre ou não cita, como por exemplo o atentado a Hitler em 20 de julho, ou o casamento deste com Eva Braun, um aprofundamento sobre Mengele em Auschwitz, o envolvimento do Japão na segunda guerra, e um aprofundamento na relação Hitler-Mussolini, mas como já dito, o foco do livro é o crime em si, portanto exigir demais outras informações acaba sendo uma questão meramente pessoal, já que o livro se mantém conciso no que propõe, assim, no meu caso acabou me instigando a querer me aprofundar cada vez mais em alguns temas.
Os relatos pessoais de sobreviventes(como pode-se imaginar, as vezes extremamente fortes e sensíveis) mesclados com os diários, cartas e discursos de alguns dos principais nazistas(como Eichmann, Goebbels, Himmler), e uma imensa pesquisa acadêmica, geográfica e política, fazem do livro um espetacular documento histórico.
January 4, 2024
The larger the scale of a book, the more concise the review---lacking any real familiarity with Holocaust literature, this is where I find myself. Rees has written a very readable history of the Holocaust that aims to present a comprehensive, chronological narrative of why and how the machinery of the Nazi death camps came into existence. At the forefront of Rees’ ambition in this work is to demonstrate that the ‘final solution’ was neither an omnipresent objective of the Nazi party (Mein Kampf and dozens of Hitler’s speeches are thoroughly interrogated), nor was it the product of a single, momentous decision (the Wannsee conference is also put under the historian’s microscope). Instead, Rees argues that the Holocaust must be seen through the vagaries of the Nazi war machine as it attempted to execute the imperial ambitions of Hitler on Europe’s world stage. Rees includes an enormous amount of material from interviews he conducted himself over a twenty-five-year period. Importantly, Rees fully addresses the plight of the Sinti and Romas peoples, the disabled, and homosexual population who suffered horrendously at the hands of the Nazis and would form the prototype of their attempts to annihilate the European Jewry. While the writing style lacks the tone and sensitivity of Clendinnen, as well as the sophistication of her treatment of the historical debates surrounding the Holocaust, Rees has produced an admirable introduction that is brought to life by the words of the people that endured and survived, and in many cases perpetrated, a crime of unprecedented horror. It is highly recommended.
February 9, 2017
I thought I knew something about The Holocaust but having just finished this new history I now realise I was only partly aware of the full, horrific story. The way the Western powers (including Britain) tried to avoid taking Jewish refugees in the late 30's with the argument that this would open the flood gates has some alarming parallels with today's news about Syrian refugee children.
This book should be compulsory reading for everyone.
This book should be compulsory reading for everyone.
May 9, 2021
‘Holocaust’–a word which originally meant ‘burnt offering’ or ‘sacrifice’ and only came to be associated in the popular consciousness with the extermination of the Jews relatively recently.
Concentration/ Extermination Camps : 23 Main Camps
Satellite Camps : 1,000+
Ghettos : 270
Arbeitsdorf
Commanders : Martin Weiss & Wilhelm Schitli
Inmates : 800 Deaths : 6 ( listed as suicide, heart attack or accident)
Notes of Interest : ( Ferdinand Porsche & Albert Speer ) - Volkswagen -
Auschwitz (Birkenau)- Death Camp
Founding Commander : Rudolf Höss
Inmates : 1.3 million Deaths : 1.1 million
Around one in six Jews killed in the Holocaust died in Auschwitz. By nation, the greatest number of Auschwitz's Jewish victims originated from Hungary, accounting for 430,000 deaths, followed by Poland (300,000), France (69,000), Netherlands (60,000), Greece (55,000), Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (46,000), Slovakia (27,000), Belgium (25,000), Germany and Austria (23,000), Yugoslavia (10,000), Italy (7,500), Norway (690), and others (34,000).
Notes of Interest : Adolf Burger, Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, Viktor Frankl, Imre Kertesz; Maximillian Kolbe, Primo Levy, Fritz Lohner-Beda; Irene Nemirovsky, Witold Pilecki, Edith Stein, Simone Veil, Rudolf Vrba, Alfred Wetzler, Else Ur
Belzec - Death Camp
Commanders : Christian Wirth & Gottlieb Hering
Deaths : 434,508 - 600,000
Notes of Interest : Rudolf Reder
Bergen-Belsen
Commander : Adolf Haas & Josef Kramer
Inmates : 120,000 Deaths : 50,000+
Notes of Interest : Anne & Margot Frank
Brandenburg - Euthanasia Centre
Commander : Karl Brandt & Philipp Bouhler, Irmfried Eberl, Franz Stangl
Deaths : 9,972
Notes of Interest : Nazis killed people with mental problems, including children. They called this operation "Action T4" because of the Berlin address, Tiergartenstraße 4, the headquarters of this planned and well-organized killing "euthanasia" organisation.
Buchenwald
Commander : Karl Otto Koch & Hermann Pister
Inmates : 280,000 Deaths : 56,545
Notes of Interest : Prisoners came from all over Europe and the Soviet Union—Jews, Poles and other Slavs, the mentally ill and physically disabled, political prisoners, Romani people, Freemasons, and prisoners of war. There were also ordinary criminals and sexual "deviants".
Chelmno - Death Camp
Commanders : Herbert Lange & Christian Wirth
Killed : 152,000 - 200,000
Notes of Interest : Mordechaï Podchlebnik, Szymon Srebrnik, Szlama Ber Winer
Dachau
Commanders : Large list of SS Commandants, Staff, Doctors
Inmates : 188,000+ Deaths : 41,500
Notes of Interest :
The camp's layout was developed by Commandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had a separate, secure camp near the command center, which consisted of living quarters, administration and army camps. Eicke became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for organizing others according to his model.
Flossenbür
Founders : Theodor Eicke & Oswald Pohl
Commanders : Jakob Weiseborn, Karl Künstler, Max Koegel
Inmates : 89,974 Deaths : 30,000
Notes of Interest : German Earth and Stone Works
Gross-Rosen
Commanders : Arthur Rödl, Wilhelm Gideon, Johannes Hassebroek
Inmates : 125,000 Deaths : 40,000
Notes of Interest : Boris Braun, Adam Dulęba, Franciszek Duszeńko, Heda Margolius Kovály, Władysław Ślebodziński, Simon Wiesenthal, Rabbi Solomon Zev Zweigenhaf
Herzogenbusch
Commanders : Karl Chmielewski, Adam Grünewald, Hans Hüttig
Inmates : 31,000 Deaths : 749
Notes of Interest : Helga Deen, David Kroker, Anton constandse
Hinzert
Inmates : 13, 600 Deaths : 1,000+
Kaiserwald
Inmates : 11,878 Deaths : ?
Kauen - Kovno Ghetto
commandant : Kaunas Jurgis Bobelis
Victims : 29,000 Survivors : 3,000
Notes of Interest : Aharon Barak, Aharon Barak, Zev Birger, Leyb Gorfinkel, Kama Ginkas, George Kadish, Joseph Kagan, Baron Kaga, Judith Meise, Harry Gordo, Avraham Duber Kahana Shapiro, Ephraim Oshry, Abe Rich, Sidney Shachnow, Aleksandras Štromas, Sara Ginaite, Elchonon Wasserman
Kraków-Płaszów - Ghetto
Commanders : Amon Göth, Arnold Büscher
Estimated Inmates : 150,000 Deaths : 8,000
Notes of Interest : Oskar Schindler - Schindler's List
The Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp was divided into multiple sections. separate areas for camp personnel, work facilities, male prisoners, female prisoners, and a further subdivision between Jews and non-Jews. While the primary function of the camp was forced labor, the camp was also the site of mass murder of inmates as well as prisoners brought in from the outside. The main targets were the elderly and the sick. Mass murder was carried out by shootings.
Killing Fields (42,5000+ sites discovered)
Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945 (to be published 2025)contains more than 42,500 sites that the Nazis used to persecute, exploit, and murder their victims. Much of these findings came to light starting in 2001, doubling estimates previously known. The number of sites discovered continue to rise and could be much higher.
Łódź Ghetto
Commander : Chaim Rumkowski (1877 – 1944)
Victims : 210,000
Notes of Interest : Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski was the head of the Jewish Council of Elders in the Łódź Ghetto appointed by the Nazis. (industrial based manufacturing - liquidated in 1944). All remaining prisoners were sent to death camps in the wake of military defeats on the Eastern Front.
As the head of the Judenrat, Rumkowski is remembered for his speech Give Me Your Children, delivered at a time when the Germans demanded his compliance with the deportation of 20,000 children to Chełmno extermination camp.
Majdanek - Death Camp
Commanders : Karl-Otto Koch, Max Koegel, Hermann Florstedt, Martin Gottfried Weiss , Arthur Liebehenschel
Inmates : 150,000 Deaths : 78,000
Mauthausen
Commanders : Albert Sauer & Franz Ziereis
Inmates : 85,000 in 1945 Deaths : between 122,766 and 320,000
Mittelbau-Dora
Commanders : Otto Förschner & Richard Baer
Inmates : 60,000 Deaths : 20,000
Notes of Interest : Jean Amery, Heinz Galinski
Natzweiler-Struthof
Commanders : Hans Hüttig, Egon Zill, Josef Kramer, Fritz Hartjenstein, Heinrich Schwarz
Inmates : 52,000 Deaths : 22,000
Neuengamme
Inmates : 106,000 Deaths : 42,900
Niederhagen
Commanders : Himmler
Inmates : 3,900 Deaths : 1,285
Notes of Interest : inmates were slave laborers for the development of Wewelsburg Castle, which - according to Himmler's plans - was to be the "center of the world" after the "Final Victory"
Ravensbrück
Commanders : Günther Tamaschke, Max Koegel, Fritz Suhren
Inmates : 132,000 Deaths : 30,000 - 90,000
Notes of Interest : imprisonment exclusively for Woman
Sachsenhausen
Inmates : 200,000 Deaths : 100,000
Notes of Interest : 295 women guards worked as staff in the Stutthof complex. Notable female guard personnel: Elisabeth Becker, Erna Beilhardt, Ella Bergmann, Ella Blank, Gerda Bork, Herta Bothe, Erna Boettcher, Hermine Boettcher-Brueckner, Steffi Brillowski, Charlotte Graf, Charlotte Gregor, Charlotte Klein, Gerda Steinhoff, Ewa Paradies, and Jenny-Wanda Barkmann. Becker, Bothe, Steinhoff, Paradies, and Barkmann were identified later as having committed crimes against humanity.
Sobibor - Death camp
Commanders : Franz Stangl, Franz Reichleitner
Deaths : 170,000 - 250,000
Stutthof
Commanders : Max Pauly, Paul Werner Hoppe
Inmates : 110,000 Deaths : 65,000
Notes of Interest : Alleged human soap production
controversy regarding whether corpses from Stutthof were used in the production of soap made from human corpses at the lab of Professor Rudolf Spanner. Joachim Neander argued that the production was experimental, contrary to some claims made in the previous years, and that the majority of Spanner's subjects came from other places. An investigation by Polish IPN carried out between 2002 and 2006 published among its findings that Spanner did indeed produce soap from human corpses.
Treblinka - Death Camp
Commanders : Irmfried Eberl, Franz Stangl, Kurt Franz
Deaths : 700,000 - 900,000
Notes of Interest : Richard Glazar, Artur Gold, Janusz Korczak, Chil Rajchman, Jankiel Wiernik, Samuel Willenberg, Oskar Berger
Vaivara
Commanders : Hans Ammeter, Helmut Schnabel
Inmates : 20,000 Deaths : 1,000+
Warsaw (Ghetto)
Commanders : Wilhelm Göcke, Nikolaus Herbet, Wilhelm Ruppert
Inmates : 8,000-9,000 Deaths : 4,000-5,000 (death march out of the camp)
Notes of Interest : The camp, which seldom appears in mainstream historiography, has been at the center of a conspiracy theory that asserts that a giant gas chamber was built inside a tunnel near the Warszawa Zachodnia railroad station and that 200,000 mainly non-Jewish Poles were exterminated there.
Concentration/ Extermination Camps : 23 Main Camps
Satellite Camps : 1,000+
Ghettos : 270
Arbeitsdorf
Commanders : Martin Weiss & Wilhelm Schitli
Inmates : 800 Deaths : 6 ( listed as suicide, heart attack or accident)
Notes of Interest : ( Ferdinand Porsche & Albert Speer ) - Volkswagen -
Auschwitz (Birkenau)- Death Camp
Founding Commander : Rudolf Höss
Inmates : 1.3 million Deaths : 1.1 million
Around one in six Jews killed in the Holocaust died in Auschwitz. By nation, the greatest number of Auschwitz's Jewish victims originated from Hungary, accounting for 430,000 deaths, followed by Poland (300,000), France (69,000), Netherlands (60,000), Greece (55,000), Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (46,000), Slovakia (27,000), Belgium (25,000), Germany and Austria (23,000), Yugoslavia (10,000), Italy (7,500), Norway (690), and others (34,000).
Notes of Interest : Adolf Burger, Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, Viktor Frankl, Imre Kertesz; Maximillian Kolbe, Primo Levy, Fritz Lohner-Beda; Irene Nemirovsky, Witold Pilecki, Edith Stein, Simone Veil, Rudolf Vrba, Alfred Wetzler, Else Ur
Belzec - Death Camp
Commanders : Christian Wirth & Gottlieb Hering
Deaths : 434,508 - 600,000
Notes of Interest : Rudolf Reder
Bergen-Belsen
Commander : Adolf Haas & Josef Kramer
Inmates : 120,000 Deaths : 50,000+
Notes of Interest : Anne & Margot Frank
Brandenburg - Euthanasia Centre
Commander : Karl Brandt & Philipp Bouhler, Irmfried Eberl, Franz Stangl
Deaths : 9,972
Notes of Interest : Nazis killed people with mental problems, including children. They called this operation "Action T4" because of the Berlin address, Tiergartenstraße 4, the headquarters of this planned and well-organized killing "euthanasia" organisation.
Buchenwald
Commander : Karl Otto Koch & Hermann Pister
Inmates : 280,000 Deaths : 56,545
Notes of Interest : Prisoners came from all over Europe and the Soviet Union—Jews, Poles and other Slavs, the mentally ill and physically disabled, political prisoners, Romani people, Freemasons, and prisoners of war. There were also ordinary criminals and sexual "deviants".
Chelmno - Death Camp
Commanders : Herbert Lange & Christian Wirth
Killed : 152,000 - 200,000
Notes of Interest : Mordechaï Podchlebnik, Szymon Srebrnik, Szlama Ber Winer
Dachau
Commanders : Large list of SS Commandants, Staff, Doctors
Inmates : 188,000+ Deaths : 41,500
Notes of Interest :
The camp's layout was developed by Commandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had a separate, secure camp near the command center, which consisted of living quarters, administration and army camps. Eicke became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for organizing others according to his model.
Flossenbür
Founders : Theodor Eicke & Oswald Pohl
Commanders : Jakob Weiseborn, Karl Künstler, Max Koegel
Inmates : 89,974 Deaths : 30,000
Notes of Interest : German Earth and Stone Works
Gross-Rosen
Commanders : Arthur Rödl, Wilhelm Gideon, Johannes Hassebroek
Inmates : 125,000 Deaths : 40,000
Notes of Interest : Boris Braun, Adam Dulęba, Franciszek Duszeńko, Heda Margolius Kovály, Władysław Ślebodziński, Simon Wiesenthal, Rabbi Solomon Zev Zweigenhaf
Herzogenbusch
Commanders : Karl Chmielewski, Adam Grünewald, Hans Hüttig
Inmates : 31,000 Deaths : 749
Notes of Interest : Helga Deen, David Kroker, Anton constandse
Hinzert
Inmates : 13, 600 Deaths : 1,000+
Kaiserwald
Inmates : 11,878 Deaths : ?
Kauen - Kovno Ghetto
commandant : Kaunas Jurgis Bobelis
Victims : 29,000 Survivors : 3,000
Notes of Interest : Aharon Barak, Aharon Barak, Zev Birger, Leyb Gorfinkel, Kama Ginkas, George Kadish, Joseph Kagan, Baron Kaga, Judith Meise, Harry Gordo, Avraham Duber Kahana Shapiro, Ephraim Oshry, Abe Rich, Sidney Shachnow, Aleksandras Štromas, Sara Ginaite, Elchonon Wasserman
Kraków-Płaszów - Ghetto
Commanders : Amon Göth, Arnold Büscher
Estimated Inmates : 150,000 Deaths : 8,000
Notes of Interest : Oskar Schindler - Schindler's List
The Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp was divided into multiple sections. separate areas for camp personnel, work facilities, male prisoners, female prisoners, and a further subdivision between Jews and non-Jews. While the primary function of the camp was forced labor, the camp was also the site of mass murder of inmates as well as prisoners brought in from the outside. The main targets were the elderly and the sick. Mass murder was carried out by shootings.
Killing Fields (42,5000+ sites discovered)
Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945 (to be published 2025)contains more than 42,500 sites that the Nazis used to persecute, exploit, and murder their victims. Much of these findings came to light starting in 2001, doubling estimates previously known. The number of sites discovered continue to rise and could be much higher.
Łódź Ghetto
Commander : Chaim Rumkowski (1877 – 1944)
Victims : 210,000
Notes of Interest : Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski was the head of the Jewish Council of Elders in the Łódź Ghetto appointed by the Nazis. (industrial based manufacturing - liquidated in 1944). All remaining prisoners were sent to death camps in the wake of military defeats on the Eastern Front.
As the head of the Judenrat, Rumkowski is remembered for his speech Give Me Your Children, delivered at a time when the Germans demanded his compliance with the deportation of 20,000 children to Chełmno extermination camp.
Majdanek - Death Camp
Commanders : Karl-Otto Koch, Max Koegel, Hermann Florstedt, Martin Gottfried Weiss , Arthur Liebehenschel
Inmates : 150,000 Deaths : 78,000
Mauthausen
Commanders : Albert Sauer & Franz Ziereis
Inmates : 85,000 in 1945 Deaths : between 122,766 and 320,000
Mittelbau-Dora
Commanders : Otto Förschner & Richard Baer
Inmates : 60,000 Deaths : 20,000
Notes of Interest : Jean Amery, Heinz Galinski
Natzweiler-Struthof
Commanders : Hans Hüttig, Egon Zill, Josef Kramer, Fritz Hartjenstein, Heinrich Schwarz
Inmates : 52,000 Deaths : 22,000
Neuengamme
Inmates : 106,000 Deaths : 42,900
Niederhagen
Commanders : Himmler
Inmates : 3,900 Deaths : 1,285
Notes of Interest : inmates were slave laborers for the development of Wewelsburg Castle, which - according to Himmler's plans - was to be the "center of the world" after the "Final Victory"
Ravensbrück
Commanders : Günther Tamaschke, Max Koegel, Fritz Suhren
Inmates : 132,000 Deaths : 30,000 - 90,000
Notes of Interest : imprisonment exclusively for Woman
Sachsenhausen
Inmates : 200,000 Deaths : 100,000
Notes of Interest : 295 women guards worked as staff in the Stutthof complex. Notable female guard personnel: Elisabeth Becker, Erna Beilhardt, Ella Bergmann, Ella Blank, Gerda Bork, Herta Bothe, Erna Boettcher, Hermine Boettcher-Brueckner, Steffi Brillowski, Charlotte Graf, Charlotte Gregor, Charlotte Klein, Gerda Steinhoff, Ewa Paradies, and Jenny-Wanda Barkmann. Becker, Bothe, Steinhoff, Paradies, and Barkmann were identified later as having committed crimes against humanity.
Sobibor - Death camp
Commanders : Franz Stangl, Franz Reichleitner
Deaths : 170,000 - 250,000
Stutthof
Commanders : Max Pauly, Paul Werner Hoppe
Inmates : 110,000 Deaths : 65,000
Notes of Interest : Alleged human soap production
controversy regarding whether corpses from Stutthof were used in the production of soap made from human corpses at the lab of Professor Rudolf Spanner. Joachim Neander argued that the production was experimental, contrary to some claims made in the previous years, and that the majority of Spanner's subjects came from other places. An investigation by Polish IPN carried out between 2002 and 2006 published among its findings that Spanner did indeed produce soap from human corpses.
Treblinka - Death Camp
Commanders : Irmfried Eberl, Franz Stangl, Kurt Franz
Deaths : 700,000 - 900,000
Notes of Interest : Richard Glazar, Artur Gold, Janusz Korczak, Chil Rajchman, Jankiel Wiernik, Samuel Willenberg, Oskar Berger
Vaivara
Commanders : Hans Ammeter, Helmut Schnabel
Inmates : 20,000 Deaths : 1,000+
Warsaw (Ghetto)
Commanders : Wilhelm Göcke, Nikolaus Herbet, Wilhelm Ruppert
Inmates : 8,000-9,000 Deaths : 4,000-5,000 (death march out of the camp)
Notes of Interest : The camp, which seldom appears in mainstream historiography, has been at the center of a conspiracy theory that asserts that a giant gas chamber was built inside a tunnel near the Warszawa Zachodnia railroad station and that 200,000 mainly non-Jewish Poles were exterminated there.
August 27, 2023
Serviceable account of the rise of national socialism, the Nazi regime under Hitler and the orchestration of the ‘Endlosung der Judenfrage’; the holocaust. Somewhat misleadingly, the title suggests an alternative or genuinely new and original history; this is not the case; it is rather another iteration of the well known story and as such it is well told. As for a more in depth history of the concentration camp system read ‘KL’ by Nikolaus Wachsmann, and on the holocaust; ‘Black earth’ by Timothy Snyder.
August 30, 2025
Picked up this book from home as one of dad's reads. It feels hard to rate and review a book that's so heartbreaking and confronting. It's difficult to really take in the atrocities of the Holocaust but Laurence does a great job of tying in the deluded views of the Nazi's and very real first hand accounts from survivors. It hurt my heart to read but I would recommend to anyone that wants to get more of an understanding of the lead up to the horrific time, the Nazi take over and also how it went on for so long!
July 30, 2018
Although the general outlines of this book are familiar, the inclusion of the latest research and Mr Rees' exhaustive interviews over the last quarter century makes this a very readable history of the Holocaust.
March 3, 2024
Spectacular. A must read.
February 6, 2025
My only problem with this book is that Rees’s justification for calling his history ‘new’ is unconvincing. There’s nothing wrong with it being in some respects a familiar, ‘old’ history, but one expertly told. Rees is able to weave together politics, intellectual history, and witness testimonies effortlessly. Rees lends a comforting and humane voice to the insanity of this history.
December 4, 2018
First, I imagine a lot of people might wonder "what on earth could make this so unique as to warrant the subtitle 'A new history'?". The answer is basically that there have been many more first-hand accounts collected (as mentioned in the postscript) from sufferers and others in regions that, due to the cold war, were unable to provide their input. This does go some way to creating a balance between a more measured and prosaic manner of explaining the evolution of the regime and providing more emotionally impactful accounts from interviews. These things give the book a greater sense of narrative than other such works that attempt to combine large amounts of information to understand such horrific events. William Shirer's work is one that might come to mind for many people as a previous attempt (being probably the most central and impactful tome up until this point, though containing many concerning anachronistic beliefs about features that contributed to the Nazi moral character; namely homosexuality).
Besides these points on sources though, there is a great value to be found in the way that this book approaches the question of how such a regime came to be established, considering the international perspective on the foundational contributing events. In particular, Rees gives a very deftly damning account of the outlook of many Western powers that contributed to the horrors affecting the Jews. He describes in detail how moral stances and immigration policy meant more and more Jews were essentially herded into the camps while world leaders from Canada, Britian, and France (amongst a number of others) maintained a distinctly anti-semetic line.
This is a must read, especially in an age where many people are coming to be quite concerned by the rise of populist leaders.
Besides these points on sources though, there is a great value to be found in the way that this book approaches the question of how such a regime came to be established, considering the international perspective on the foundational contributing events. In particular, Rees gives a very deftly damning account of the outlook of many Western powers that contributed to the horrors affecting the Jews. He describes in detail how moral stances and immigration policy meant more and more Jews were essentially herded into the camps while world leaders from Canada, Britian, and France (amongst a number of others) maintained a distinctly anti-semetic line.
This is a must read, especially in an age where many people are coming to be quite concerned by the rise of populist leaders.
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