"Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Europe’s Jews. . . . An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel. . . . A masterpiece that will endure." — New York Times Book Review The Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedländer's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of the Holocaust, the most systematic and sustained of modern genocides. The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise. In this unparalleled work—based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs—the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.

Four months before Hitler came to power, Pavel Friedländer was born in Prague to a middle-class Jewish family. In 1939, seven-year-old Pavel and his family were forced to flee Czechoslovakia for France, but his parents were able to conceal their son in a Roman Catholic seminary before being shipped to their destruction. After a whole-hearted religious conversion, young Pavel began training for priesthood. The birth of Israel prompted his discovery of his Jewish past and his true identity. Friedländer describes his experiences, moving from Israeli present to European past with composure and elegance. The Wisconsin edition is not for sale in the British Commonwealth or Empire (excluding Canada.)

This volume provides an in-depth discussion of Saul Friedlander's landmark two-volume history of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and the Jews. It brings together a range of internationally acclaimed historians to address the manifold conceptual and historiographical issues raised in Friedlander's monumental work. It includes a major essay by Friedlander himself on the challenges of producing an integrated history of the Holocaust. The aim of this book is not simply to evaluate Friedlander's work on its own merits, but rather to use his text as a means of exploring the contours and future of Holocaust historiography. The central concern is to situate his work within the broader terrain of Holocaust studies and European history, as well as to explore the ways in which his book opens up new directions in the knowledge, study and understanding of the Shoah in particular and twentieth century genocide in general.

" --Bulletin of the Arnold and Leora Finkler Institute of the Holocaust ResearchA world-famous scholar analyzes the historiography of the Nazi period, including conflicting interpretations of the Holocaust and the impact of German reunification.

A great historian crowns a lifetime of thought and research by answering a question that has haunted us for more than 50 years: How did one of the most industrially and culturally advanced nations in the world embark on and continue along the path leading to one of the most enormous criminal enterprises in history, the extermination of Europe's Jews? Giving considerable emphasis to a wealth of new archival findings, Saul Friedlander restores the voices of Jews who, after the 1933 Nazi accession to power, were engulfed in an increasingly horrifying reality. We hear from the persecutors themselves: the leaders of the Nazi party, the members of the Protestant and Catholic hierarchies, the university elites, and the heads of the business community. Most telling of all, perhaps, are the testimonies of ordinary German citizens, who in the main acquiesced to increasing waves of dismissals, segregation, humiliation, impoverishment, expulsion, and violence.

The second and concluding volume of the definitive two-volume account of the Holocaust With THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION, Friedlander completes his work on Nazi Germany and the Jews. The book describes and interprets the history of the persecution and murder of the Jews throughout occupied Europe. The implementation of German extermination policies and measures depended on the submissiveness of political authorities, the assistance of local police forces and the passivity or co-operation of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. The implementation also depended on the readiness of the victimes to submit to orders, often with the hope of modifying them or surviving long enough to escape the German vice. This multifaceted representation - at all levels and in all different places - enhances the perception of the magnitude, complexity and interrelatedness of the multiple components of this history. Based on a vast variety of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices, Friedlander manages to avoid domesticating the memory of unparalleled and horrific events. The convergence of these various aspects gives THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION its unique aulity. In this work the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.

The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise. The Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedländer's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of this most systematic and sustained of modern genocides. In this unparalleled work—based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs—the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.