What do You think about Nazi Germany And The Jews: The Years Of Extermination, 1939-1945 (2007)?
Barnes & Nobles impulse acquisition 2008-05-19, largely swayed due to the gauche Pulitzer emblem.A pretty solid companion to Shirer, which glosses over most of the destruction of European Jewry (the authority here is of course Hilberg's three-volume 1985 update to his classic The Destruction of the European Jews, and honestly I'd have expected Friedländer to use his access to modern Soviet sources to great effect in distinguishing himself from Hilberg, especially given the six (6!) bibliographic references to the latter's work), and a good introduction to the subject in a single volume. It does tend to run together a bit.
—Nick Black
Excellent, in-depth examination of factors surrounding the darkest years of the 20th century. The author's use of diaries throughout was brilliant, and I am in total awe that so many diaries were rescued and preserved. New York Times, 24 June 2007:"What raises “The Years of Extermination” to the level of literature, however, is the skilled interweaving of individual testimony with the broader depiction of events. Friedländer never lets the reader forget the human and personal meanings of the historical processes he is describing. By and large, he avoids the sometimes unreliable testimony of memoirs for the greater immediacy of contemporary diaries and letters, though he also makes good use of witness statements at postwar trials. The result is an account of unparalleled vividness and power....I plan to read "volume one" -- The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939, and Friedländer's biography. The librarian in me would like to read a book on the diaries, and how they survived....
—Carolyn O'Hara
(Note: This is a review for Volume II of Saul Friedlander's "Nazi Germany and the Jews". This volume is "The Years of Extermination." Volume I is entitled "The Years of Persecution." I did not realize there WAS a Volume I until I was far into this book. I will go back and read it at some point, but I have many other books waiting on my reading list. These are large books and, frankly, rather depressing.)Whoa. This book is, essentially, the definitive chronicle of the Holocaust. It is heavily informed by diaries, and the chronological nature of the book follows many diarists up until their deaths (other than a very few who did survive). This results in an intense combination of large-scale analysis of policy, public opinion, and historical events, mixed with first person eyewitness to persecution, brutality, and murder. This is not a short read. It took me about 3 weeks of regular reading to get through it, but that is due purely to length (and the desire to preserve my own mental health). The writing itself can get bogged down at times with numbers and dates, and can become confusing in terms of names, but those are very, very minor criticisms of what is otherwise an outstanding history.Friedlander spends a good portion of time analyzing the conduct of the Roman Catholic Church, and of religious organizations and institutions in general. He seems very interested (as am I) in truly understanding the motivations behind the Church's actions (and frequent lack thereof). I do begrudge the Pope his precarious political position, being inside a fascist state allied to the Reich, but in the end I think that the actions of Church leadership were utterly reprehensible. What small protest was made was almost exclusively for the protection of converted Catholics of Jewish descent. (Yes, some, even many, individual members of the clergy did an extraordinary amount of work selflessly protecting Jews. But in doing so, they were sometimes actively acting against Church decrees) I have also come to the conclusion that the idea that the average German citizen "didn't know" is absolutely ridiculous. Of course they knew. At BEST, they "didn't want to know." But claims of pure ignorance are nothing but post-war smoke screen, and an attempt to assuage their own guilt. Now, do I think they could have done anything about it? Probably not. Not in a fascist police state, which made it difficult to coordinate resistance activities. However, when it comes down to it, I think that the average German just didn't care. At least not enough to make a fuss. Anti-semitism was a deep part of culture in large sections of Europe anyway, and this was only exacerbated by the propaganda efforts of the Nazi Party. You see this in some of the language used by civilians, soldiers, and clergy alike: it was "horrible," but "they only brought it on themselves." Or, "they started the war" and now they were "getting what they deserved."This book cannot even begin to scratch the surface of the complexities of the Holocaust. But it is, in my opinion, about the best that a single volume could attempt to do. It's very readable, and while maintaining a good deal of impartiality still manages to have an enormous emotional impact. Simple passages about how on such and such a day in the Ukraine, an Einsatzgruppen shot 25,000 men, women, and children. Just, wow, how do you even process that? The number of "6 million Jews killed" gains so much more impact when numbers like 25,000 killed in two days, or 4,000 being killed PER DAY in Auschwitz are presented to you. A million is a number too large to really imagine. But when you imagine 25,000, and realize that this is only killing out of thousands...Again, it's impossible to really address the Holocaust in a single book. But I think the quote by Stefan Ernest, a Jew hiding on the "Aryan" side of Warsaw, which Friedlander places at the beginning is a good way to put it:"The struggle to save myself is hopeless... But that's not important. Because I am able to bring my account to its end and trust that it will see the light of day when the time is right... And people will know what happened... And they will ask, is this the truth? I reply in advance: No, this is not the truth, this is only a small part, a tiny fraction of the truth... Even the mightiest pen could not depict the whole, real, essential truth."
—Chris
