The Years Of Extermination

View other editions of The Years Of Extermination.
View books by Saul Friedlander.

Remarkable piece of historiography - Rated
Comprehensive summary of the Nazi extermination program, its beginnings, development, and full-scale execution. Friedländer links the usual Nazi bureaucratic-organizational perspective with the major events of the war, the actions of the collaborationist regimes, of the Catholic church and of the Allies, of all major actors affecting the progression of events, together with letters from perpetrators and diaries of the victims into one terrifying and gripping tale about the plight of European Jewry during WWII. It is at times hard to go on reading, especially when you reach one of the many final diary entries in the book before the victim's deportation and death. Friedländer's explanation as to the ultimate source of the Holocaust, the superstitious view of Hitler and his associates that they Jew was the world historical enemy of civilization and culture, an idea which they quite successfully disseminated among the German population through relentless propaganda, is ultimately more convincing than for instance the ones given in Browning's study of Police Battalion 101, or Goldhagen's thesis in Hitler's Willing Executioners. It explains why the extermination program (up to the point where the Reich collapsed) continued unabated. The book is a remarkable piece of historiography.

Noteworthy points: Don't dismiss conspiracy theorists as merely harmless cranks--the animating idea behind the Holocaust was a conspiracy theory. The exterminations were widely known among the Germans relatively early and in the East where they took place. It wasn't just the Germans--the age-old hatred was all over Europe.

a great work a bit austere - Rated
yes a masterpiece but a couple of pictures would have been a good idea. no pics in this book

Heartbreaking and illuminating - Rated
You may be put off by the length of this book, however there are over 200 pages of notes and sources. The most comprehensive book I have read on the expulsion of Jews from German occupied territories and their allies. I say German rather than Nazi because this dispels the myth that the ordinary German did not participate or know about the actions leading up to and during the Final Solution. In many countries during this period the Germans provided the atmosphere for these countries to indulge their age old anti-Semitism with a vengeance. Few countries come out with any credit and many saw as it as a way to remove the so called 'influence' and 'corruption' of the Jew within their societies. Much of the book is made up of diaries, logs and records of the Jewish experience during these dreadful times, from day to day life in the ghettos, living in an increasingly marginalised world and of course the labour and death camps. The most heartbreaking entries are from young children and teenagers who attempted to cling onto to hope and their dreams of the future peaceful world. This major work is written in a style that informs and draws you in without burying you in technically dense detail. I highly recommend this book to both those who have a standing interest in the subject matter and the casual reader who wants to get a European wide understanding of this time rather than location specific information.