This seminal classic historical work by scholar and teacher Lucy Dawidowicz is a stunning book that both graphically and systematically spells out the details of the horrifying war of annihilation forged against the European Jews by the Third Reich. In a world that seen so much published regarding this subject, this work stands as benchmark. Ms. Dawidowicz addresses herself to the most fundamental of questions regarding this unspeakable policy of ritual race murder; how could a modern, sophisticated and industrial country such as Germany have perpetrated such a deliberate reign of horror against a whole people simply because they were Jewish? And, although we have seen recent books such as "Problem From Hell" that deal more systematically with the issue of modern examples of state sponsored genocide, the simple fact is that the Holocaust seems to have occurred because, for the first time in modern history, it was both politically and logistically possible. In other words, the Nazis had both the method and the impetus to do the unspeakable.

Seen in this fashion, the equation becomes at once political, social, and technological; given the irrational impulse to do so, the modern Nazi regime was able to harness all of its energies, spiritual, political and material, into such a devastating and sustained campaign against the Jews, and was therefore uniquely able to forge the most bloody of final results. The author's approach winds the reader through several phases of the Holocaust phenomenon with a careful, meticulous and methodical consideration of the social, economic, and political influences swirling through this witches' brew of evil. In the first part of the book, entitled "The Final Solution", she traces the origins and growth of anti-Semitism, a form of patent racism so virulent it threatened to exterminate the Jews from all of continental Europe. In so tracing the roots and origins of the Nazis and their fellow travelers, she shows how the rise of National Socialism revolved around the scapegoating of the Jews.

The execution of this plan was enacted in the ghettos and small towns of Poland and Germany as well as in a network of forced labor camps and concentration camps throughout Eastern Europe. In the second part of the book, ""The Holocaust", the author dramatically describes how the plight of the Jews was gradually worsened and how the violence and deprivation grew systematically more and more horrible with each passing month. Inhabitants of camps or ghettos led lives of incredible hardship and deprivation, struggling helplessly against hunger, disease, exposure to extremes of temperature and weather, and of course, to the wanton cruelties of the Nazi regime. This is indeed interesting material, detailing the ways in which Jewish groups both within the ghettos and the death camps worked together to make the best out of an impossible situation.

This is a heart-rending book, one that accurately portrays the ways in which Jews were deceived and betrayed by the authorities, convinced they were being resettled rather than being slated for extermination. Ms. Dawidowicz writes with compassion and authority covering this intrinsically difficult issues, as one reads of lives torn asunder, families ripped apart, and wholesale rape, mutilation, and murder. This book, published more than thirty years ago, is one of the most comprehensive, best documented, and well-written book to have appeared on the subject of the Holocaust. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in the subject.

This very well written history of the origins and progession of the Holocaust has much to recommend to it. It provides a strong and concise overview of Naziism and advances the disturbing but plausible idea that World War II was intended in part as a cover for the Holocaust to come. It offers a chilling look inside the ghettos of Eastern Europe and shows how wretched life was and also how life didn't stop immediately despite the horrors heaped upon the Jews. Where she forcuses her attention, she provides a strong and complete overview.

However, the book stops at the gates of the death camps and at the western boundaries of Germany. While an appendix touches on the fate of all of Europe's Jews, the body of the work leaves out the progression of atrocities in Western and Southern Europe. Maybe there was little to say as most of the Jews ended up in the ghettos but she doesn't make it clear till the appendix. And she makes no effort to talk about like in the labor camps or death camps. While there was little to talk of but doom and the barest hope of survival, many books since have covered this topic, so I wonder why she didn't.

Still, this work makes an excellent overview to the Holocaust, to the inhumanity of the Germans, and to the efforts, no matter how small, by the Jews to never surrender.

This book provides a good detail of how the German leadership convinced itself that genocide was not only correct and legal, but a necessity for their survival. I thought the book was going to be a description of one atrocity after another, but it provides the reader with more of the details of why it was happening. Don't get me wrong, there is enough of the horror represented here. I would have liked a larger review of all of the holocaust crimes across Europe, but there are limits to the size of any one book. This book is a good start to find out why it happened.

This collection of documents has allowed me and my high-school history students to explore the record of Nazi atrocities, thanks to the author's insightful editorial comments. Part One - "The Final Solution" deals with the Nazis' plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe, including pieces of Nazi legislation, minutes from meetings, and various orders. Part Two - "The Holocaust" - presents a Jewish perspective of life in Germany from 1933-1939, of the ghettos in eastern Europe, and the ordeals of deportation. I have yet to find a finer book in terms of providing a succinct collection of Holocaust-related documents. It has worked well for me and my students in collaboration with reading Raul Hilberg's _The Destruction of the European Jews_.

This book was expertly compiled from primary source documents concerning Jews, Nazis, and the Holocaust. The types of documents range from personal accounts to govt. papers. There is a very wide variety of types and subject matter. The reading level varies from piece to piece. This book is good for historical research, termpapers, and documentation. I highly recommend this book, but not to read straight through just for fun.

This books is a good historical treatment for middle school students. The first half of the book tells about Hitler and the German extermination of the Jews and the second half tell the Jews' side of the story. Black and white pictures are plentiful with one every few pages. Kids will understand how prevalent anti-Semitism was when they see the picture of a game board for "Jews Get Out," a board game sold in Germany in 1939 and 1940. The one thing I did not like was on a map which shows the destruction of the Jews in Europe by country (showing the number of Jews killed over the prewar Jewish population), you cannot read the numbers for Poland because they are stuck in a crack. Also the map of Europe under the German Rule is hard to read because of its black and white color scheme. But all in all, the book is an easy to read and informative history of this time.

At the outset of her historiography, Dawidowicz argues that the murder of 6 million Jews is distinctive, not because they suffered more than other peoples during the war, but "because of the differentiative intent of the murderers and the unique effect of the murders" (14). The murder of Jews and the destruction of the European Jewish community were "ends in themselves, ultimate goals of" Nazism (13). Consequently, she takes to task historians and others who deny the uniqueness of the Jewish experience. "By equating the destruction of the European Jews with other events, they succeed in obscuring the role of anti-Semitism in accomplishing that murder" (17). Even good-natured attempts to recognize the potential of terrible evil within every nation or society hide the reality of virulent racism as a causal factor in the case of the Holocaust. For her, the ideal history of the Holocaust would include three components: "(1) an exposition of how and by whom the European Jews were annihilated; (2) an explanation of why they were annihilated, with reference to the history of anti-Semitism; and (3) an appropriate account of their history before the rise of Hitler" (25). Unfortunately, she found few works that did justice to their subject. I recommend this books to students and teachers of the Holocaust. In particular, secondary school teachers may find it helpful in searching for bias within their own lessons and their students' assigned texts.