Monday, April 28, 2008

Five best: books for Holocaust Remembrance Day

At the Wall Street Journal, Robert Rozett named five "essential books to keep in mind for Holocaust Remembrance Day on May 2."

Number One on his list:
Nazi Germany and the Jews
by Saul Friedländer
HarperCollins, 1997, 2007

The Nazi onslaught against the Jews shattered an entire universe, leaving random fragments. Good historians like Saul Friedländer do their best to collect the fragments and construct a coherent picture despite missing pieces. In "Nazi Germany and the Jews," Friedländer uses an array of sources, including many first-hand accounts, to portray the unfolding war and Holocaust. He shows us Hitler at the center of the crime. But by giving voice to survivors, he never lets the reader forget that the crime itself was perpetrated not by a single evil leader but by humans against fellow humans. The two volumes of this narrative are the best attempt to date by a single author to set forth the history of the Holocaust.

Read about all five titles.

Robert Rozett is the director of the Yad Vashem Library in Jerusalem and author of Approaching the Holocaust: Texts and Contexts.

--Marshal Zeringue