Remembering: Voices of the Holocaust: A New History in the Words of the Men and Women Who Survived

by Lyn Smith

Overview

A landmark achievement in Holocaust scholarship, Remembering Voices of the Holocaust is culled from hours of first person accounts from survivors recorded for inclusion in the sound archives of both the Imperial War Museum in London, and the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. In their own words, Jewish survivors as well as Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and both perpetrators and ordinary observers recount the entire horrific arc of the Holocaust from the ominous rise of the Nazi party during the Weimar days through the liquidation of the ghettos and the institution of Hitler's "final solution," continuing on to the liberation of the camps and the harrowing aftermath of the War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786734061
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/20/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	976,223
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Lyn Smith was involved in the creation of the Holocaust sound archive at the Imperial War Museum from its inception. She has been interviewing Holocaust survivors for over twenty-five years. She is also a lecturer in International Politics at the Open University in the UK.

Table of Contents

Author's Preface     xi
Acknowledgements     xv
Foreword   Laurence Rees     1
Prologue     5
1933-36: Persecution     23
1937-39: The Search For Refuge     41
1939: War     65
1940-41: The Third Reich Expands     79
1939-42: The Ghetto (i)     103
1943-44: The Ghetto (ii)     131
1940-44: The Camps (i)     153
Resistance     183
1944-1945: The Camps (ii)     209
1945: Death March     243
1945: Liberation     261
Aftermath     291
Epilogue     315
Index     341
List of Contributors     348
Suggested Reading     351
Map     352

Editorial Reviews

Elie Wiesel's Night may be topping bestseller lists, thanks to Oprah's book club, but there is still a need for other testimonies to the horrors of the Holocaust. Smith, who has recorded the experiences of survivors for London's Imperial War Museum, weaves together more than 100 accounts to construct a narrative of Nazi persecutions from the first anti-Semitic measures in 1933 through the liberation of the concentration camps. Atrocities, cruelties and random acts of kindness are recounted, fueled by a fierce need to preserve the truth for future generations. The strength of this collection is deepened by the inclusion of the experiences of Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, members of German police battalions and resistance fighters. The most horrific anecdotes evoke the suffering of German, Polish and Czech Jews in overcrowded ghettos and extermination centers, somehow managing to outwit and, against all odds, overcome the final solution by luck and their persistent will to live. This is an extraordinary work of scholarship and a reminder of the power of individual stories, which can bring home the horrors of WWII more forcefully than abstract numbers. B&w photos. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly