Review
"In this era of reexamining the Holocaust, it is essential to return to the primary sources--the actual words of the victims, the perpetrators, and the (not always innocent) bystanders. Dr. Berenbaum, one of the finest historians of the tragedy, has done a masterful job of assembling this record in a highly accessible form. The result is a book that should be on everyone's shelf of essential Holocaust books. The details, as Berenbaum shows, tell the story."--Ambassador Richard C. HolbrookeA
"A masterfully edited work, "Witness to the Holocaust contains basic documents that are essential reading for careful study of the twentieth century's watershed event. Enhancing education, and thereby creating new witnesses to the Holocaust, this book testifies to an already established fact: No American scholar is doing more than Michael Berenbaum to ensure that memory of the Holocaust will be well informed."--John K. Roth, Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College
"The book is essential reading for those who want to understand the magnitude of the crime, the anguish of its victims, and the indifference of the bystanders, whether they be novices or advanced students. It demonstrates yet again why Berenbaum is one of this generation's most respected teachers and scholars."--Margot Stern Strom, Executive Director, Facing History and Ourselves
"Reading like a novel, MichaelBerenbaum's Witness to the Holocaust is an authoritative distillation of crucial Nazi documents and the testimony of the victims and the principal perpetrators of that event. Berenbaum has given us a highly readable resource for both an overview and an in-depth understanding of the Holocaust. "--Richard Rubenstein, President, University of Bridgeport
"With a keen, unerring eye and perceptive mind, Michael Berenbaum has brilliantly compiled a catalogue of the senseless barbarism and suffering inflicted on the Jews of Europe, along with countless others, while the world stood by and allowed it to happen. This work explores hitherto uncharted facets of a concept that in scope and execution stands unique in the annals of history. "--Gerda Weissman Klein, subject of the awardwinning documentary "One Survivor Remembers"
Product Description
50 years after the liberation of the death camps in Nazi Germany, the former project director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and current director of its Research Institute, compiles a fascinating collection of firsthand accounts of the Holocaust.
From the first boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany in 1933 to testimony at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, this illustrated volume includes survivor testimonies, letters, government documents, newspaper reports, diary entries and other firsthand materials, as well as Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum's insightful commentary putting the materials into context. The book's chronologically organized documentary approach provides a unique perspective on this much-published subject, and drawing on the most current research in the field of Holocaust studies, offers readers an unforgettable and engrossing history of the Nazis' largely successful effort to eradicate the Jews and other "undesirables" of Europe.