A Guide To 75 Selected Holocaust History Books

De: Andrew Kavchak

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Students who wish to learn about the Holocaust face a daunting task. Thousands of books have been written about the Holocaust since the end of World War II. Where to begin?

A Guide to 75 Selected Holocaust History Books is a guide for students (both young and old) interested in learning about the Holocaust. The book begins with the author’s essay about his Holocaust education. The subsequent chapters provide an overview of the history of the Holocaust followed by a discussion of seventy-five selected books and their authors that shed some light on Holocaust history and key subjects including Kristallnacht, the Wannsee Conference, the ghettos, the Einsatzgruppen death squads, the death camps and revolts. Also included are several chapters about what the Allies knew about the genocide as it unfolded and their response. The final chapters are about those who tried to provide help and assistance to desperate Jews.

Of the selected seventy-five books many are classics that made significant contributions to Holocaust historiography. Many were written by academic scholars, historians and journalists who conducted extensive research and wrote comprehensive and authoritative books on the Holocaust as a whole, or various aspects of the tragedy.

However, the most striking books are the diaries and memoirs of those who lived through the terror. Some diaries are by those who did not survive. The memoirs by those who survived the ghettos, death camps, revolts, and death marches, including those of the Sonderkommando members who were forced to work in the Auschwitz crematoria, describe events that cannot fail to make readers take frequent breaks to try to fathom and understand the descriptions of the frightening horrors that they had just read.

This Guide may serve as a starting point for readers who are unfamiliar with the Holocaust and wish to learn about the history of the “Final Solution”. It may also be a helpful reference and supplement to other reading lists that Holocaust educators provide to their students.