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The Holocaust: An Unfinished History Hardcover – January 23, 2024

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A revelatory new history that reexamines the brutal reality of the Holocaust – and reinterprets the events as a living trauma from which modern society has not yet recovered

One of the most acclaimed books of the year: "Outstanding" ( Times Literary Supplement ); "Remarkable" ( Guardian ); "Important and challenging" ( Jewish Chronicle); "Deeply haunting" (Telegraph)

The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked.

Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London—reveals how the idea of “industrial murder” is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguing persuasively that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. He also considers the nature of trauma the Holocaust engendered, and why Jewish suffering has yet to be fully reckoned with. And he makes clear that the kernel to understanding Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins.

Drawing on decades of research, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History upends much of what we think we know about the Holocaust. Stone draws on Nazi documents, but also on diaries, post-war testimonies, and even fiction, urging that, in our age of increasing nationalism and xenophobia, it is vital that we understand the true history of the Holocaust.

• Print length 464 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Mariner Books
• Publication date January 23, 2024
• Dimensions 6.25 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches
• ISBN-10 0063349035
• ISBN-13 978-0063349032
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

“[An] incisive analysis of the genocidal endgame that unfolded from Nazi antisemitism." — Wall Street Journal

“This vital history shatters many myths about the Nazis’ genocide. ... Drawing on the latest scholarship in English and German, Stone’s brisk, energetic book fizzes with ideas. Indeed, even if you think you know the subject, you’ll probably find something here to make you think. ... An excellent book.” — Dominic Sandbrook The Sunday Times

"Rescu[es] the Holocaust from distortion and cliché. . . . Historian Dan Stone seeks to amend—and expand—our understanding of the genocide. . . . A concise and accessible history that extends beyond the death camps.” — New York Times Book Review

"A stunning, original, concise analysis, culling the latest research and the most observant eyewitness accounts of the time. The parallels to fascism today are extremely unsettling. Few scholars could write this masterful synthesis and even fewer would take on a closer examination of its darkest features and unsettling questions about the broader significance of Holocaust education today." — Wendy Lower, author of  Hitler's Furies, a National Book Award finalist

"A holocaust history for our times, passionate as well as scholarly, and written with a sharp eye to the growing threat of the radical right in the present. Stone is not afraid to question the verities that have become attached to this most catastrophic epoch of modern history, and he challenges readers to confront its scope and enormity anew." — Jane Caplan, Emeritus Professor of European History, University of Oxford

"Stone's remarkable book offers both a narrative overview and an analysis of the events, challenging many common assumptions and often returning to how this terrible history remains ‘unfinished.’” — Matthew Reisz, The Guardian

"Stone is one of the foremost historians of the Holocaust. . . . Breaks new ground and ties the Holocaust to modern times in ways that are valuable and important." — Dan Carlin, Hardcore History podcast

“A significant new history of the Holocaust from the director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway. . . . Stone delivers a gripping account. . . . A painfully revealing, vital history.” — Kirkus Reviews   (starred review)

"A book that turns on their head some of the widely-held notions about that terrible era of genocide 80 years ago." — Tony Rennell, Daily Mail (London)

"An important and challenging work." — Colin Shindler, Jewish Chronicle

“A brilliant study, lucid, powerful, moving, and full of original insights. Few general studies of the Holocaust have so successfully integrated the international, indeed global, dimensions of the Nazi genocide and its aftermath.”  — Mark Roseman, Pat M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor in History at Indiana University

“A timely account of the Holocaust and its many consequences. Troubling and thought-provoking for a world in which post-war certainties are now dissolving. It deserves the widest possible readership.”  —  Richard Overy, professor of history at the University of Exeter and New York Times -bestselling author of Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945

“One of the best new publications presenting more complicated narratives of the Holocaust ... Dan Stone's  The Holocaust: An Unfinished History , is an outstanding survey that updates the history of the European genocide of the Jews in a thought-provoking and informative way. ... Powerful.” — Jeffrey Veidlinger,  Times Literary Supplement

"Drawing on his extensive own research and a vast range of work by historians from across the last eight decades, Stone sets about showing how our mental picture of the Holocaust is dangerously wrong. ... A vital and provocative book." — Chris Kissane, The Irish Times

"An outstanding book: well written, deeply felt, always perceptive and exhibiting considerable knowledge of decades of Holocaust scholarship. It will become the standard work in English on the subject for some time to come." — Bill Niven, History Today

"Outstanding. … Deeply haunting. ... An engaging and accessible read that never hurries or shields the reader from its dark subject matter." — Angus Reilly, The Telegraph (UK)

“Stone [is] one of the foremost Holocaust historians in the world. . . . Instead of presenting Holocaust history as a tidy affair wrapped in a bow with neat moral messages, Stone proposes that we examine its unfinishedness, its unknowability, and its very incompleteness. . . . By confronting these uncomfortable truths, Stone hopes to jolt us out of complacency. We have not, he suggests, sufficiently learned the lessons of the Holocaust.” — New Republic

“[A] sobering and meticulous exploration of aspects of the Shoah that have remained, until now, under-analyzed. And these aspects of the Holocaust are especially salient today. . . . Stone also examines, with great sensitivity, the deep trauma that survivors carried with them their entire lives. . . . Stone’s disturbing findings, tragically, resonate all too clearly.” — Commentary

About the Author

Dan Stone is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author or editor of numerous articles and books, including: Histories of the Holocaust (Oxford University Press); The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath (Yale University Press); and Concentration Camps: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press).

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (January 23, 2024)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0063349035
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063349032
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.36 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.5 x 9.25 inches
• #48 in Jewish Holocaust History
• #59 in Discrimination & Racism
• #114 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions

About the author

Dan Stone is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London. He obtained his BA and DPhil at the University of Oxford, where he was also a postdoctoral Junior Research Fellow, and has taught at Royal Holloway since 1999. He is a historian of modern Europe with particular interests in the Holocaust, genocide, fascism, the history of the idea of "race", and theory of history.

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Rescuing the Holocaust From Distortion and Cliché

A new book by the historian Dan Stone seeks to amend — and expand — our understanding of the genocide.

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By Jennifer Szalai

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THE HOLOCAUST: An Unfinished History , by Dan Stone

“The Holocaust teaches us nothing”: It’s a surprising declaration to encounter in the early pages of “The Holocaust: An Unfinished History,” not least because its author, Dan Stone, also happens to be the director of the Holocaust Research Institute at the University of London. But Stone is doing what a conscientious historian does, countering platitudes with demystification.

One reason the Holocaust teaches us nothing is that we have a warped understanding of what actually happened. Pop-cultural depictions in books and films have often elided discomfiting complexity in favor of what one sociologist has called “trauma drama.” The result is a paradox: “An increased awareness of the Holocaust has led to it being banalized and exploited,” Stone writes.

His argument happens to be especially timely. Prominent historians have decried the misuse of “Holocaust memory” by politicians to justify Israel’s bombing of Gaza after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks . But Stone’s book was first published in Britain in January of last year — too early to include events from the last few months. And aside from a concluding chapter about the present, it is primarily about the past.

Stone wants to rescue the hard facts of historical research from the blur of common clichés. He challenges the preoccupation with “industrial genocide,” which has become a central part of the “prevailing narrative.” The information he presents won’t be new to historians, or even to readers well versed in the literature; Stone’s book is presumably intended for those whose knowledge of the Holocaust is derived mainly from movies like “ The Boy in the Striped Pajama s” or “ Schindler’s List .” Or perhaps it’s for the 20 percent of Americans under 30 who, according to a poll by The Economist, believe that the Holocaust is a “myth.”

To that end, he offers a concise and accessible history that extends beyond the death camps. Nearly half of the Holocaust’s six million victims died of starvation in the ghettos or in “face-to-face” shootings in the east. Before Kristallnacht, in November 1938, Jews had not yet been subjected to large-scale physical violence in Germany. Stone notes that Nazi directives for the pogrom showed a “curious adherence to petit bourgeois morality,” with one high-ranking official primly decreeing that “places of business and apartments belonging to Jews may be destroyed but not looted.”

Such bureaucratic pettiness is another part of the story Stone tells. Having been stripped of German citizenship in 1935, the country’s Jews were constrained by a profusion of demeaning legislation. They were forbidden to keep typewriters, musical instruments, bicycles and even pets. The sheer variety of persecution was bewildering. It was also chillingly deceptive, persuading some law-abiding Jews that survival was a matter of falling into line. Stone quotes the wrenching letter of a woman reassuring her loved one that getting transported to Theresienstadt, in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, might be better than living in Germany. “My future place of residence represents a sort of ghetto,” she explained. “It has the advantage that, if one obeys all the rules, one lives in some ways without the restrictions one has here.”

The historian Saul Friedländer described Nazism as “the use of bureaucratic measures to enforce magical beliefs.” Just how those beliefs connected to a body of thought is an area that has been “understudied,” Stone says — a neglect that is understandable given the fatuousness of Nazi “ideas.” The “pompous and un-self-conscious verbiage” in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was the “rambling, incoherent product of a second-rate mind.” But stupidity can be powerful. Even though the Nazis also adopted the jargon of science, they kept resorting to “race mysticism” and a facile revulsion against the intellect. As the Dutch novelist Harry Mulisch remarked of Hitler: “He did not need to write or think. He knew .”

Stone allows that the Wannsee Conference of Jan. 20, 1942, where Nazi officials mapped out their plans for “a final solution of the Jewish question in Europe,” marked a turning point from “ad hoc” murders to their “systematization.” In March 1942, “75 to 80 percent of the Holocaust’s victims were still alive.” Eleven months later, “80 percent of the Holocaust’s victims were dead.” (The historian Christopher Browning began “Ordinary Men,” his 1992 study of Germany’s Order Police in Poland, with the same startling statistics.) Stone doesn’t downplay Germany’s responsibility, but he argues that by fixating on the Germans we lose sight of a bigger picture. He calls the Holocaust a “continentwide crime” that involved “a series of interlocking local genocides carried out under the auspices of a grand project.”

This broader lens shows that one didn’t have to adopt Germany’s strain of messianic and mystical antisemitism to take part in the Holocaust — the ordinary vices of “venality” and “opportunism” and a desire to fit in would often do. One of the largest massacres took place at Bogdanovka, in the Romanian-administered territory of Transnistria; in less than a month, as many as 48,000 Jews were murdered.

But paying more heed to the role played by non-Germans in the Holocaust has generated a backlash in some European countries, where far-right movements reject even the suggestion of responsibility. In Poland, this form of nationalist denial has been enshrined into law. Stone reports that two historians of the Holocaust were sued for running afoul of 2018 legislation making it a crime to suggest Poles were complicit in the murder of Jews .

“Selective Holocaust memory is being put at the service of criminalizing scholarship,” Stone writes. That line refers specifically to Poland, though he also discusses how “selective Holocaust memory” has been pressed into service by a range of disparate agendas. In Germany, regulations on how the Holocaust is remembered are so restrictive that criticism of Israel gets branded as antisemitic (a conflation that occurs elsewhere, including here in the United States ). Stone deplores the effects of Germany’s position. In addition to shutting down debate about Israeli treatment of Palestinians, it has the perverse result of equating Jews with Israel “in the fetishized manner of both hard-line Zionist and anti-Zionist thought.”

Stone resists thinking in terms of lessons, though he believes that the history of the Holocaust offers a warning. It has little to do with anything so nebulous and ubiquitous as “intolerance,” or even “hatred,” he says, and more to do with politics and the state. After all, the Nazis were ushered into German government by conservative elites cynically intent on clinging to power. Today, Stone writes, eyeing the insurgent rise of the radical right in Europe and elsewhere, “fascism is not yet in power. But it is knocking on the door.”

THE HOLOCAUST : An Unfinished History | By Dan Stone | Mariner | 402 pp. | $32.50

Jennifer Szalai is the nonfiction book critic for The Times. More about Jennifer Szalai

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Sixteen essential books about the Holocaust

Our pick of the most informative books about the holocaust to help you learn, reflect and remember..

Here, Journalist Arielle Tchiprout reflects on the importance of remembering the Holocaust, and shares an essential reading list to educate readers on one of the darkest periods of human history. 

It’s easy enough to think that the Holocaust is simply a relic of the past; that it belongs only in history textbooks or in museum displays. Yet, the devastation and destruction it caused lives on today, which is why remembering it is so important.

Of course, you’ll already know what the Holocaust was – the genocide carried out by the Nazis during World War II, in which six million Jews were murdered – but you won’t necessarily know the myriad stories behind those numbers, and the stories of millions more people who managed to survive. Like my grandfather, who ran away from a forced labour camp in Bulgaria in 1945. He kept the yellow star he was forced to wear until he passed away in Israel in his nineties. Or my cousin’s grandparents, who managed to flee Vienna for the United States, after they lost their basic human rights in the place they had called home. Or my colleague, who has no extended family past her grandparents, because they all perished in Auschwitz. It’s hard to find a Jewish person living in Britain today who doesn’t have their own story to tell; often, like mine, it’s a story of luck that their family tree still exists at all. For many second- or third-generation survivors, the trauma lives on inside our hearts.

So although the Holocaust is history, it’s really not so distant. In fact, some survivors are still alive to tell the tale – memoirists like Dr Edith Eger and Eddie Jaku can still recall the horrors with burning clarity. And with the rising tide of antisemitism and fascism around the world, it feels more pertinent than ever to remember those whose lives were stolen (both physically and mentally), to ensure such hatred never seeps so deeply into society again. 

In my opinion, the best way to remember is to immerse yourself in the stories of people who were there. People with hopes and dreams, anxieties and insecurities, humour and resilience; people who loved, were loved and are still loved by those who are living today. Read on for my pick of the best true-story accounts, to learn about the Holocaust. 

The best memoirs and biographies for learning about the Holocaust

A little girl in auschwitz, by lidia maksymowicz.

The extraordinary story of Lidia Maksymowicz , who survived at the hands of Auschwitz's 'Angel of Death' Dr Mengele, A Little Girl in Auschwitz has touched hearts around the world. Brought to the infamous Nazi death camp with her mother when she was just three years old, Lidia experienced unimaginable horror daily, until the camp was liberated in 1945. Through her own words, Lidia tells her moving true story and shares how her experiences have shaped the rest of her life. 

The Happiest Man on Earth

By eddie jaku.

100-year-old Eddie Jaku survived the horrors of Auschwitz, yet he now believes he is the ‘happiest man on Earth.’ Eddie’s inspirational memoir, published last year, tells the story of losing those he loved, but never losing hope, and it’s full of wisdom about finding happiness even in the darkness.

Lily's Promise

By lily ebert.

This is the moving story of Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, written with her great-grandson Dov. When Lily was liberated at the end of the Second World War, a Jewish-American soldier handed her a banknote with the words ‘the start to a new life, good luck and happiness!’ written on it. Decades later, when Lily was 96, Dov decided to track down the family of that soldier. Lily finally told her life story to the world, from her childhood in Hungary to the deaths of her family members in Auschwitz to her new life in Israel and then London, fulfilling the promise she made to her 16-year-old self to share the horrors of the holocaust.

A Mother's Courage

By malka levine.

A powerful and moving tribute to a determined and resourceful woman who refused to give up hope so long as her children needed her. Malka was two when the Nazi invaders forced her family into the Jewish ghetto in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, a small city in present-day Ukraine. Of the 25,000 Jews in the city in 1939, only 30 would survive. Rivka kept Malka and her two older brothers alive through eighteen terrifying months, as the Nazis systematically killed the inhabitants of the ghetto. In the midst of the inhumanity, a few people risked their lives to help. A Mother’s Courage is Malka’s chance at long last to thank not only her brave mum but all the heroes who opened their hearts to her and her family.

How to Be a Refugee

By simon may.

While we often hear stories of those who escaped or perished during the Holocaust, Simon May tells a very different, much rarer story: of those who refused to believe they were Jewish. May tells the gripping story of his mother and his two aunts, whose trajectories included converting to Catholicism and securing ‘Aryan’ status with high-ranking help in the Nazi regime. After the war, May’s mother continued to conceal her identity, leading him on an illuminating quest into what constitutes belonging, and home.

A Garden of Eden in Hell: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer

By melissa muller.

This is the story of Alice Herz-Sommer, who was one of the best-known pianists in Prague. When she, her husband and their six-year-old son were deported to the concentration camp Theresienstadt, music was her salvation, and her concerts gave her fellow prisoners hope in a world of pain and death. 

by Edith Eger

Hungarian-born Edie was just like any other teenager – she dreamed of being a ballerina, and she was head-over-heels in love with her first boyfriend. Until, aged sixteen, she was sent to Auschwitz, where she watched her mother enter the gas chambers, and she was forced to dance for notorious Nazi Dr Josef Mengele. Edie went on to become an acclaimed clinical psychologist, and this is her incredible story of resilience and healing.

Man's Search For Meaning

By viktor e frankl.

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was able to observe the way he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn’t) with the experience. He came to believe that humans’ deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding book (which has sold 16 million copies) transcends its time and place; it’s an exploration of what it truly means to live.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

By heather morris.

This unforgettable book has sold five million copies, and for good reason. Through this fictional account, Heather Morris tells the beautiful true story of Lale Sokolov, whose job in Auschwitz was to tattoo prisoners’ arms. Waiting in line to be tattooed was a young woman named Gita. For Lale it was love at first sight, and he became determined to not only survive himself but to ensure she did too.   

The Diary of a Young Girl

By anne frank.

Anne Frank’s diary has become one of the most famous books about the Holocaust, and it remains one of the most introspective, enlightening accounts of what it was like to be a Jewish child living in hiding. A must-read for both children and adults.

The Little Girl Who Could Not Cry

Lidia Maksymowicz was just three years old when she arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with her family. Once there, Lidia was picked by Dr Josef Mengele for his experiments and survived eighteen months of unimaginable trauma, while her mother risked her life to secretly visit her. By the time Birkenau was liberated her family had disappeared, and Lidia was adopted by a loving family, but in 1962, she discovered that her birth parents were still alive and she faced an agonising choice. In this powerful, moving and ultimately hopeful autobiography, Lidia comes to terms with the past and finds the strength to share her story, saying: ‘Hate only brings more hate. Love, on the other hand, has the power to redeem.’

If This is a Man

By primo levi.

Primo Levi, an Italian chemist, was arrested as a member of the anti-fascist resistance during the war and deported to Auschwitz. His impassioned attempt to understand the 'rationale' behind the concentration camps was completed shortly before his death in 1987. 'The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers . . . One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice.' – The Guardian

Further non-fiction about the Holocaust

Final solution, by david cesarani.

This is an intelligent and thought-provoking short history by one of this generation’s leading Jewish and Holocaust scholars. David Cesarani adopts a rigorously Judeocentric approach to the whole narrative of the march to genocide and its aftermath, presenting a subtly different timeline which casts afresh the horror of the period and engenders a significant re-evaluation of the how and why.

Novels about the Holocaust

The yellow bird sings, by jennifer rosner.

In Poland in 1941, Róza and her five-year-old daughter Shira spend their days and nights hiding in a farmer's barn after escaping being rounded up with the other Jews in their town. Róza tells her daughter stories of a yellow bird, the only one who can sing the melodies Shira composes in her head. Róza would do anything to keep her daughter safe, but eventually, she is faced with an impossible choice – keep her close, or let her go and give her a chance to survive.

The Tobacconist

By robert seethaler.

The Tobacconist tells a deeply moving story of ordinary lives profoundly affected by the Third Reich. Seventeen-year-old Franz accepts an apprenticeship with elderly tobacconist Otto Trsnyek and is soon supplying the great and good of Vienna with their newspapers and cigarettes.

But it is 1937, and in a matter of months Germany will annex Austria and the storm that has been threatening to engulf the little tobacconist store will descend, leaving the lives of Franz, Otto and their customers irredeemably changed.

The Most Precious of Cargoes

By jean-claude grumberg.

Told with a fairytale-like lyricism, this is a fable of family and redemption set against the horrors of the Holocaust. A poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a forest. Despite their poverty and the war raging around them, the wife prays that they will be blessed with a child. 

A Jewish man rides on a train with his wife and twin babies. When his wife no longer has enough milk to feed them both, in desperation he throws his daughter into the forest, hoping that she’ll be saved. When the woodcutter’s wife finds the baby she takes her home, though she knows the danger this act of kindness may bring. This is literary fiction at its most moving. 

You might also be interested in:

In the midst of civilized europe, by jeffrey veidlinger.

Acclaimed historian Jeffery Veidlinger shows for the first time how a wave of genocidal violence gripped Ukraine and Poland between 1918 and 1921, where unpunished attacks on Jewish families and communities set the conditions for the Holocaust twenty years later. 

Drawing upon long-neglected archival materials, including thousands of newly discovered witness testimonies, trial records and official orders, Veidlinger uses riveting prose to explore and grapple with the horrors of the anti-Jewish pogroms in this important work.

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The best novels set in world war two, the 50 best history books of all time, 3 lessons i learnt from eddie jaku, survivor of auschwitz.

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The columbia guide to the holocaust.

Donald L. Niewyk and Francis R. Nicosia

Columbia University Press

Pub Date: September 2003

ISBN: 9780231112017

Format: Paperback

List Price: $38.00 £32.00

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ISBN: 9780231505901

Format: E-book

List Price: $37.99 £32.00

• PDF via the Columbia UP App

One of the most useful portable Holocaust reference works published in the last few years. What makes this work so interesting is that it is structured so differently from most other one-volume works on the topic....Recommended for all libraries. Library Journal

An impressive volume, and the authors have succeeded in providing a handy one-volume, multipurpose guide to the Holocaust. John A. Drobnicki, American Reference Books Annual

Useful and recommended for all libraries. Choice

Very helpful and useful. Center for Holocaust Studies

A valuable work of reference. It is superbly organized and its quality is uniform throughout. Succinct, lucid, and informative, this compact volume is also up-to-date. It fills a broad need. Raul Hilberg

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E-Books on Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights

Here is a list of e-books in our collection that could also be helpful for your research and writing.  

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Here are some titles to get you started with your research and writing! This is by no means an exhaustive list. Please search our catalog, our databases, and ask a librarian for assistance to find more excellent resources.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Holocaust Literature

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Holocaust Literature by Matthew Boswell LAST REVIEWED: 20 May 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 26 July 2017 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0009

In a 1977 lecture collected in Dimensions of the Holocaust , the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel famously argued: “If the Greeks invented tragedy, the Romans the epistle and the Renaissance the sonnet, our generation invented a new literature, that of testimony.” This article offers some illustrative examples of the forms that testimonial writing can take, and of other “new literatures” and fields of intellectual inquiry that have developed alongside it, such as Holocaust fiction and memory studies. For the purposes of this article, Holocaust literature encompasses a broad range of documentary and fictional texts, including memoirs, diaries, essays, novels, poetry, drama, fake memoirs, and children’s literature as well as critical, theoretical, and philosophical reflections on this writing and on the Holocaust more broadly. Given the complexity and boundary-breaking nature of much Holocaust literature, many of the texts included in the article defy straightforward classification and could be included under multiple headings. The scope of this article is such that it does not include historical studies of the Holocaust, or critical works which focus principally on historiography or art forms other than literature.

From the mid-1970s to the turn of the 21st century, critical debates about Holocaust literature evolved through a series of landmark studies, such as Langer 1975 , Ezrahi 1980 , Rosenfeld 1980 , Friedlander 1992 , and Lang 2000 , which explored diaries, poems, and memoirs of survivors as well as works of history and fiction. Often preoccupied by the question of the adequacy or otherwise of different forms of Holocaust writing, this generation of critics tended to be skeptical about the value of Holocaust fiction, which was thought to trivialize the experiences of Holocaust victims, with Lang 2000 and others arguing that silence often formed a more respectful and fitting response. During this period, landmark edited collections of essays, such as Friedlander 1992 , were characterized by interdisciplinary conversations between historians and literary critics, with anxieties about fictionalization linking to attendant concerns about postmodern approaches to history and Holocaust denial. Works such as Young 1988 and Lang 2000 drew on narrative theory to offer sophisticated analyses of the relationship between literary form and the understanding of history. From the 2000s onward a new generation of critics, including voices emerging from outside this male American Jewish tradition, steered the discussion about representational ethics toward broader questions concerning the historical and (trans)cultural contexts that inform Holocaust writing, while being generally more open to the possibilities of fiction. Widening understandings of historical memory led to new literary and critical engagements with subjects such as transgenerational transmission, transnationalism, perpetrator perspectives, transgression, and the interconnectedness of Holocaust memory with other histories. These new directions are charted in detail in Adams 2014 and covered more fully in the Critical Studies section.

Adams, Jenni, ed. The Bloomsbury Companion to Holocaust Literature . London: Bloomsbury, 2014.

A valuable recent resource for students and experienced scholars, with chapters on various aspects of Holocaust literature such as postmemory, transgression, and ethics. Comprehensive and meticulously edited, includes a section on “New Directions in Holocaust Literary Studies,” an annotated bibliography, and a glossary of major terms and concepts.

Ezrahi, Sidra DeKoven. By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226233376.001.0001

Discusses testimony and fiction, drawing particular attention to the religious and mythological schemas employed in this writing, and to continuities and ruptures with Jewish thought.

Friedlander, Saul, ed. Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the “Final Solution.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

A seminal volume on Holocaust representation, drawing together leading historians, theorists, and critics to consider the virtues and limits of diverse cultural and historical texts. Crystallizes debates about representational adequacy, which dominated the field in the 1990s.

Lang, Berel. Holocaust Representation: Art within the Limits of History and Ethics . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Builds on previous investigations into the aesthetics and ethics of Holocaust literature in works such as the edited collection Writing and the Holocaust (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988). One of the last major attempts to make a case for the inherent limits of Holocaust writing.

Langer, Lawrence L. The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975.

Argues that Holocaust literature cannot be regarded as the exclusive domain of the victims alone, or even Jewish writers. An early study of the “art of atrocity.” The volume contrasts with Lang’s more proscriptive style of criticism.

Rosen, Alan, ed. Literature of the Holocaust . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Contributions from a wide range of scholars, affording an excellent general introduction to Holocaust literature. Consists of three parts covering wartime victim writing, postwar responses in different national literatures, and alternative approaches such as song and anthologization.

Rosenfeld, Alvin H. A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980.

Outlines how Auschwitz marks a threshold moment for literature. Rosenfeld argues that literature must record both the extermination of the Jews and the death of the Enlightenment idea of the human (hence “a double dying”), with writers and critics brought to a new awareness of the limits of their language and methodological frameworks.

Young, James E. Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Investigates the interrelatedness of literature, narrative, and historical understanding, exploring the phenomenon of interpretation through analysis of documentary and fictional sources, as well as oral history and memorials, which all contribute to what Young terms the “texture of memory.”

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World War, 1939-1945

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This list contains a selection of non-fiction and scholarly books available from Penn State University Libraries related to the themes of "Americans and the Holocaust". See below for additional lists of historical fiction, graphic novels, and children's literature.

See also the online exhibition " Americans and the Holocaust " from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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The Holocaust

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Library of Congress Subject Headings:

• Anti-Nazi Movement
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• Basic Bibliography of the Holocaust (Yad Vashem) Comprehensive and current, this bibliography is subdivided into various Holocaust-related topics and includes about four to twenty-five books on each topic.
• Bibliography of Holocaust Literature by Abraham J. Edelheit; Hershel Edelheit Call Number: Wells Library - Stacks -- Z6374.H6 E33 1986 (a second copy with the same call number is in the Wells Library Reference Reading Room) ISBN: 081337233X Publication Date: 1986-11-09 This is a massive, if dated, bibliography of English-language materials on the Holocaust. It includes an author index, introductory essays, and some annotations. See also the Edelheits' supplement , with 6,500 additional entries, published in 1990.
• The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust by Donald L. Niewyk; Francis R. Nicosia Call Number: E-book, also available in print: Wells Library - Stacks -- D804.3 .N54 2000 ISBN: 9780231505901 Publication Date: 2000 This invaluable resource provides a multidimensional survey of the Holocaust, essentially integrating five separate books into one comprehensive reference tool: a historical overview; a guide to Holocaust controversies; an A-to-Z encyclopedia of people, places, and terms; a chronology; and a comprehensive resource guide. Whether used separately for their individual merits or approached as an integrated whole, the five sections of this informative volume constitute an indispensable contribution to the study of the Holocaust.
• European Jewish Research Archive A free-to-use and comprehensive repository of social research on European Jews since 1990.
• The Oryx Holocaust Sourcebook by William R. Fernekes Call Number: Wells Library - Reference Reading Room -- Z6374.H6 F47 2002 ISBN: 1573562955 Publication Date: 2002-05-30 The Oryx Holocaust Sourcebook provides a comprehensive selection of high quality resources in the field of Holocaust studies. The Sourcebook's 17 chapters cover general reference works; narrative histories; monographs in the social sciences; fiction, drama, and poetry; books for children and young adults; periodicals; primary sources; electronic resources in various formats; audiovisual materials; photographs; music; film and video; educational and teaching materials; and information on organizations, museums, and memorials. In addition, each chapter begins with a concise overview essay.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Bibliographies The bibliographies "list only materials that are in the Museum Library’s collection or available online. They are not meant to be exhaustive. In most cases, annotations are provided to help the user determine each item’s focus, and call numbers for the Museum’s Library are given in parentheses following each citation."
• Children of the Holocaust by Paul R. Bartrop; Eve E. Grimm Call Number: E-book ISBN: 9781440868535 Publication Date: 2020 This important reference work highlights a number of disparate themes relating to the experience of children during the Holocaust, showing their vulnerability and how some heroic people sought to save their lives amid the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime. In addition to more than 125 entries, this book features 10 illuminating primary source documents, ranging from personal accounts to Nazi statements regarding what the fate of Jewish children should be to statements from refugee leaders considering how to help Jewish children after World War II ended.
• The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust by Shmuel Spector (Editor); Geoffrey Wigoder (Editor); Elie Wiesel (Introduction by) Call Number: Wells Library - Reference Reading Room -- DS135.E8 E45 2001 ISBN: 0814793568 Publication Date: 2001-07-01 "Today throughout much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, only fragmentary remnants of once thriving Jewish communities can be found as evidence of more than two thousand years of vibrant Jewish presence among the nations of the world. These communities, many of them ancient, were systematically destroyed by Hitler's forces during the Holocaust. Yet each of their stories-from small village enclaves to large urban centers-is unique in its details and represents one of the countless intertwined threads that comprise the rich tapestry of Jewish history. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust captures these lost images. In three volumes, it chronicles the people, habits and customs of more than 6,500 Jewish communities that thrived during the early part of the twentieth century only to be changed irrevocably by the war."
• Encyclopedia of the Holocaust by Schmuel Spector (Editor); Robert Rozett (Editor) Call Number: Wells Library - Reference Reading Room -- D804.25 .E53 2000 ISBN: 0816043337 Publication Date: 2000 Written in association with Yad Vashem, this encyclopedia features eight essays on the Holocaust on such topics as the history of European Jewry, Jewish achievements and contributions to European culture, and the rise of antisemitism.
• The Holocaust: an Encyclopedia and Document Collection [4 Volumes] by Paul R. Bartrop (Editor); Michael Dickerman (Editor) Call Number: E-book, also available in print: Wells Library - Undergraduate Services - Core Collection -- D804.25 .H655 2017 ISBN: 9781440840845 Publication Date: 2017 This four-volume set provides reference entries, primary documents, and personal accounts from individuals who lived through the Holocaust that allow readers to better understand the cultural, political, and economic motivations that spurred the Final Solution.
• The Holocaust Encyclopedia by Walter Laqueur (Editor); Judith Tydor Baumel Call Number: E-book, also available in print: Wells Library - Reference Reading Room -- D804.25 .H66 2001 ISBN: 0300084323 Publication Date: 2001 The Holocaust has been the subject of countless books, works of art, and memorials. Fifty-five years after the fact the world still ponders the enormity of this disaster. The Holocaust Encyclopedia is the only comprehensive single-volume work of reference providing both a reflective overview of the subject and abundant detail concerning major events, policy decisions, cities, and individuals.
• Holocaust Survivors by Emily Taitz (Editor) Call Number: Wells Library - Undergraduate Services - Core Collection -- D804.3 .T34 2007 ISBN: 9780313336768 Publication Date: 2007 Although there are more and more Holocaust memoirs on the market, this essential collection is the first to present such a large number of biographical profiles of survivors for a broad readership. Holocaust Survivors: A Biographical Dictionary comprises 278 entries on more than 500 survivors of the World War II genocide. The profiles, averaging 500 words, are mostly of Jews, both individuals and family members, from throughout Europe. Organized alphabetically, the essays cover their background, circumstances and ordeals during the war, aftermath, and life achievements, including family and career. Most are on ordinary people who have extraordinary life stories.
• Perpetrating the Holocaust: Leaders, Enablers, and Collaborators by Paul R. Bartrop; Eve E. Grimm Call Number: E-book, also available in print: ISBN: 9781440858970 Publication Date: 2019 Weaving together a number of disparate themes relating to Holocaust perpetrators, this book shows how Nazi Germany propelled a vast number of Europeans to try to re-engineer the population base of the continent through mass murder.
• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume I by Geoffrey P. Megargee (Editor) Call Number: E-book, also available in print: Wells Library - Stacks -- D805.A2 U55 2009 ISBN: 9780253353283 Publication Date: 2009 The Nazis and their allies ran more than 44,000 camps, ghettos, and other sites of detention, persecution, forced labor, and murder during the Holocaust. Few people know about the breadth of the Nazi camp system and the conditions in those places—including the broad range of prisoner experiences. The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 , aims to answer basic questions about as many of those sites as possible. As of July 2020, three of the expected seven volumes have been published. Volumes I and II are available for free from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum . The link above goes to the IUCAT record for volume I. Here are the links for volume II and volume III .

Freely Available Websites:

• Guide to Holocaust Websites List created by Professor Mark Roseman. Largely primary sources, but also many secondary sources.
• AHEYM: The Archive of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish Memories The Archives of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish Memories (AHEYM—the acronym means "homeward" in Yiddish) includes approximately 800 hours of Yiddish-language interviews with 350 individuals, most of whom were born between 1900 and 1930. The interviews were conducted in Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and Slovakia. The interviews include: linguistic and dialectological data; oral histories of Jewish life in Eastern Europe; Holocaust testimonials; musical performances (including Yiddish folk songs, liturgical and Hasidic melodies, and macaronic songs); folklore, including anecdotes, jokes, stories, children's ditties, folk remedies, and Purim plays; reflections on contemporary Jewish life in the region, and; guided tours by local residents of sites of Jewish memory in the region.
• Arolsen Archives The Arolsen Archives are an international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of National Socialism. The collection has information on about 17.5 million people and belongs to UNESCO’s Memory of the World. It contains documents on the various victim groups targeted by the Nazi regime and is an important source of knowledge for society today.
• Duane Mezga Holocaust Sites Photograph Collection The Duane Mezga Holocaust Sites photograph collection consists of 682 digitized Kodachrome 64 color slides. Almost all of the photographs were taken in 1992, of concentration camps and other historically significant sites related to the Holocaust. Twenty-one sites in Austria, then-Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland are included. The photographs were taken using the progressive-realization technique, which captures the experience of walking through a site. Memorials present at these sites were a focus of the documentation.
• Holocaust Denial on Trial Documents the trial of David Irving v. Penguin Books Ltd. and Deborah Lipstadt.
• Nuremberg Trials Project The Harvard Law School Library's Nuremberg Trials Project is an open-access initiative to create and present digitized images or full-text versions of the Library's Nuremberg documents, descriptions of each document, and general information about the trials.
• Pogrom: November 1938--Testimonies from Kristallnacht (Wiener Library) In the months following November 1938, Alfred Wiener and his colleagues at the Central Jewish Information Office in Amsterdam collected over 350 contemporary testimonies and reports of the November Pogrom in Germany and Austria. These documents are now available here, for the first time in English.
• Simon Wiesenthal Center Digital Archives The Digital Archives images are owned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center Library and Archives. The Archives database and low-resolution images are available here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Digitized Collections Includes interviews, objects, newspapers, books, and many other types of material. You can also limit results based on events, cities, camps, and ghettos.
• Yad Vashem Documents Archive Includes posters, personal documentation, official documentation, lists, letters, memoirs, testimonies, diaries, and legal documentation. Advanced search allows you to limit results to English-language documents.
• Yizkor Books at the New York Public Library Yizkor (memorial) books document Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust. Most yizkor books are in Hebrew and/or Yiddish. Most are available for download.
• Conditions & Politics in Occupied Western Europe, 1940-1945 Features full-text documents received in the British Foreign Office from all European states under Nazi occupation during World War II.

An archive of primary source documents, covering the repatriation and emigration of the Displaced Persons and survivors of the Holocaust and World War II.

Files include original reports on orphans and Unaccompanied Children Under UNRRA Care, Voluntary Societies British Zone Monthly Reports, 1949-, Welfare Work Amongst Jewish Prison Inmates, DPs in Assembly Stations, 1950, Displaced persons and prisoners of war to and from Italy, Complaints about Russian refugees and displaced persons (DPs); allegations of mistreatment of Soviet nationals, and Repatriation and disposal of prisoners of war, surrendered personnel, displaced persons etc.

• Archives of the Holocaust : an international collection of selected documents by Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton (general editors) Call Number: Wells Library - Research Coll. - D810.J4 A73 Publication Date: 1989- Contains reproductions of files and documents from a number of relief and charitable organizations dealing with the plight of the Jews during the 1930s and 1940s.

• The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 Call Number: e-books ISBN: 9783110435191 Publication Date: 2019- This landmark collection of primary sources provides unique first-hand insights into the persecution and murder of the Jews of Europe under Nazi rule. The documents, all translated from the language of the original source, range from the police orders and administrative decrees issued by the Nazi apparatus across Germany and occupied Europe to the diaries and letters of Jewish men, women, and children facing discrimination, impoverishment, violent assaults, incarceration, deportation, and death.
• The trial of German major war criminals by the International Military Tribunal sitting at Nuremberg, Germany [e-book] by H.M. Attorney-general by H.M. Stationery Off Call Number: E-book Publication Date: 1946-1951

Scholarly Journals Related to the Holocaust

• Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal Call Number: Electronic resource

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This multi-disciplinary database provides full-text for more than 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,700 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.

PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) indexes articles, books, studies, selected official documents and other resources on public policy issues, public administration, law, politics and government.

Includes journal articles, books, government documents, pamphlets and the reports of public and private bodies.  Also indexes publications in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Print source: PAIS bulletin (1915-1990), PAIS Foreign Language Index (1968-1990), PAIS International in Print (1991-)

Access to political science, public policy, and international relations journals. Also includes thousands of recent full-text doctoral dissertations on political science topics, together with working papers, conference proceedings, country reports, policy papers and other sources.

Provides full text access and indexing for e-journals and e-books from a variety of scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.

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The Holocaust

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 11, 2023 | Original: October 14, 2009

The Holocaust was the state-sponsored persecution and mass murder of millions of European Jews, Romani people, the intellectually disabled, political dissidents and homosexuals by the German Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. The word “holocaust,” from the Greek words “holos” (whole) and “kaustos” (burned), was historically used to describe a sacrificial offering burned on an altar.

After years of Nazi rule in Germany, dictator Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution”—now known as the Holocaust—came to fruition during World War II, with mass killing centers in concentration camps. About six million Jews and some five million others, targeted for racial, political, ideological and behavioral reasons, died in the Holocaust—more than one million of those who perished were children.

Historical Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler . Though use of the term itself dates only to the 1870s, there is evidence of hostility toward Jews long before the Holocaust—even as far back as the ancient world, when Roman authorities destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave Palestine .

The Enlightenment , during the 17th and 18th centuries, emphasized religious tolerance, and in the 19th century Napoleon Bonaparte and other European rulers enacted legislation that ended long-standing restrictions on Jews. Anti-Semitic feeling endured, however, in many cases taking on a racial character rather than a religious one.

Did you know? Even in the early 21st century, the legacy of the Holocaust endures. Swiss government and banking institutions have in recent years acknowledged their complicity with the Nazis and established funds to aid Holocaust survivors and other victims of human rights abuses, genocide or other catastrophes.

Hitler's Rise to Power

The roots of Adolf Hitler’s particularly virulent brand of anti-Semitism are unclear. Born in Austria in 1889, he served in the German army during World War I . Like many anti-Semites in Germany, he blamed the Jews for the country’s defeat in 1918.

Soon after World War I ended, Hitler joined the National German Workers’ Party, which became the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), known to English speakers as the Nazis. While imprisoned for treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler wrote the memoir and propaganda tract “ Mein Kampf ” (or “my struggle”), in which he predicted a general European war that would result in “the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany.”

Hitler was obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the “pure” German race, which he called “Aryan,” and with the need for “Lebensraum,” or living space, for that race to expand. In the decade after he was released from prison, Hitler took advantage of the weakness of his rivals to enhance his party’s status and rise from obscurity to power.

On January 30, 1933, he was named chancellor of Germany. After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler anointed himself Fuhrer , becoming Germany’s supreme ruler.

Concentration Camps

The twin goals of racial purity and territorial expansion were the core of Hitler’s worldview, and from 1933 onward they would combine to form the driving force behind his foreign and domestic policy.

At first, the Nazis reserved their harshest persecution for political opponents such as Communists or Social Democrats. The first official concentration camp opened at Dachau (near Munich) in March 1933, and many of the first prisoners sent there were Communists.

Like the network of concentration camps that followed, becoming the killing grounds of the Holocaust, Dachau was under the control of Heinrich Himmler , head of the elite Nazi guard, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and later chief of the German police.

By July 1933, German concentration camps ( Konzentrationslager in German, or KZ) held some 27,000 people in “protective custody.” Huge Nazi rallies and symbolic acts such as the public burning of books by Jews, Communists, liberals and foreigners helped drive home the desired message of party strength and unity.

In 1933, Jews in Germany numbered around 525,000—just one percent of the total German population. During the next six years, Nazis undertook an “Aryanization” of Germany, dismissing non-Aryans from civil service, liquidating Jewish-owned businesses and stripping Jewish lawyers and doctors of their clients. 

Nuremberg Laws

Under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a Jew, while those with two Jewish grandparents were designated Mischlinge (half-breeds).

Under the Nuremberg Laws, Jews became routine targets for stigmatization and persecution. This culminated in Kristallnacht , or the “Night of Broken Glass” in November 1938, when German synagogues were burned and windows in Jewish home and shops were smashed; some 100 Jews were killed and thousands more arrested.

From 1933 to 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany did, while those who remained lived in a constant state of uncertainty and fear.

HISTORY Vault: Third Reich: The Rise

Rare and never-before-seen amateur films offer a unique perspective on the rise of Nazi Germany from Germans who experienced it. How were millions of people so vulnerable to fascism?

Euthanasia Program

In September 1939, Germany invaded the western half of Poland , starting World War II . German police soon forced tens of thousands of Polish Jews from their homes and into ghettoes, giving their confiscated properties to ethnic Germans (non-Jews outside Germany who identified as German), Germans from the Reich or Polish gentiles.

Surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, the Jewish ghettoes in Poland functioned like captive city-states, governed by Jewish Councils. In addition to widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger, overpopulation and poor sanitation made the ghettoes breeding grounds for disease such as typhus.

Meanwhile, beginning in the fall of 1939, Nazi officials selected around 70,000 Germans institutionalized for mental illness or physical disabilities to be gassed to death in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

After prominent German religious leaders protested, Hitler put an end to the program in August 1941, though killings of the disabled continued in secrecy, and by 1945 some 275,000 people deemed handicapped from all over Europe had been killed. In hindsight, it seems clear that the Euthanasia Program functioned as a pilot for the Holocaust.

'Final Solution'

Throughout the spring and summer of 1940, the German army expanded Hitler’s empire in Europe, conquering Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Beginning in 1941, Jews from all over the continent, as well as hundreds of thousands of European Romani people, were transported to Polish ghettoes.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 marked a new level of brutality in warfare. Mobile killing units of Himmler’s SS called Einsatzgruppen would murder more than 500,000 Soviet Jews and others (usually by shooting) over the course of the German occupation.

A memorandum dated July 31, 1941, from Hitler’s top commander Hermann Goering to Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD (the security service of the SS), referred to the need for an Endlösung ( Final Solution ) to “the Jewish question.”

Yellow Stars

Beginning in September 1941, every person designated as a Jew in German-held territory was marked with a yellow, six-pointed star, making them open targets. Tens of thousands were soon being deported to the Polish ghettoes and German-occupied cities in the USSR.

Since June 1941, experiments with mass killing methods had been ongoing at the concentration camp of Auschwitz , near Krakow, Poland. That August, 500 officials gassed 500 Soviet POWs to death with the pesticide Zyklon-B. The SS soon placed a huge order for the gas with a German pest-control firm, an ominous indicator of the coming Holocaust.

Holocaust Death Camps

Beginning in late 1941, the Germans began mass transports from the ghettoes in Poland to the concentration camps, starting with those people viewed as the least useful: the sick, old and weak and the very young.

The first mass gassings began at the camp of Belzec, near Lublin, on March 17, 1942. Five more mass killing centers were built at camps in occupied Poland, including Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the largest of all, Auschwitz.

From 1942 to 1945, Jews were deported to the camps from all over Europe, including German-controlled territory as well as those countries allied with Germany. The heaviest deportations took place during the summer and fall of 1942, when more than 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw ghetto alone.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Amid the deportations, disease and constant hunger, incarcerated people in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in armed revolt.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from April 19-May 16, 1943, ended in the death of 7,000 Jews, with 50,000 survivors sent to extermination camps. But the resistance fighters had held off the Nazis for almost a month, and their revolt inspired revolts at camps and ghettos across German-occupied Europe.

Though the Nazis tried to keep operation of the camps secret, the scale of the killing made this virtually impossible. Eyewitnesses brought reports of Nazi atrocities in Poland to the Allied governments, who were harshly criticized after the war for their failure to respond, or to publicize news of the mass slaughter.

This lack of action was likely mostly due to the Allied focus on winning the war at hand, but was also partly a result of the general incomprehension with which news of the Holocaust was met and the denial and disbelief that such atrocities could be occurring on such a scale.

'Angel of Death'

At Auschwitz alone, more than 2 million people were murdered in a process resembling a large-scale industrial operation. A large population of Jewish and non-Jewish inmates worked in the labor camp there; though only Jews were gassed, thousands of others died of starvation or disease.

In 1943, eugenics advocate Josef Mengele arrived in Auschwitz to begin his infamous experiments on Jewish prisoners. His special area of focus was conducting medical experiments on twins , injecting them with everything from petrol to chloroform under the guise of giving them medical treatment. His actions earned him the nickname “the Angel of Death.”

Nazi Rule Ends

By the spring of 1945, German leadership was dissolving amid internal dissent, with Goering and Himmler both seeking to distance themselves from Hitler and take power.

In his last will and political testament, dictated in a German bunker that April 29, Hitler blamed the war on “International Jewry and its helpers” and urged the German leaders and people to follow “the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the universal poisoners of all peoples”—the Jews.

The following day, Hitler died by suicide . Germany’s formal surrender in World War II came barely a week later, on May 8, 1945.

German forces had begun evacuating many of the death camps in the fall of 1944, sending inmates under guard to march further from the advancing enemy’s front line. These so-called “death marches” continued all the way up to the German surrender, resulting in the deaths of some 250,000 to 375,000 people.

In his classic book Survival in Auschwitz , the Italian-Jewish author Primo Levi described his own state of mind, as well as that of his fellow inmates in Auschwitz on the day before Soviet troops liberated the camp in January 1945: “We lay in a world of death and phantoms. The last trace of civilization had vanished around and inside us. The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to conclusion by the Germans in defeat.”

Legacy of the Holocaust

The wounds of the Holocaust—known in Hebrew as “Shoah,” or catastrophe—were slow to heal. Survivors of the camps found it nearly impossible to return home, as in many cases they had lost their entire family and been denounced by their non-Jewish neighbors. As a result, the late 1940s saw an unprecedented number of refugees, POWs and other displaced populations moving across Europe.

In an effort to punish the villains of the Holocaust, the Allies held the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46, which brought Nazi atrocities to horrifying light. Increasing pressure on the Allied powers to create a homeland for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust would lead to a mandate for the creation of Israel in 1948.

Over the decades that followed, ordinary Germans struggled with the Holocaust’s bitter legacy, as survivors and the families of victims sought restitution of wealth and property confiscated during the Nazi years.

Beginning in 1953, the German government made payments to individual Jews and to the Jewish people as a way of acknowledging the German people’s responsibility for the crimes committed in their name.

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13 Gripping Books That Teach About the Holocaust

Deepen awareness of the suffering incurred, as well as the courage and resilience expressed

In Germany, every school-age child must visit a concentration camp to learn about the horrors that occurred during Hitler’s reign. Through education, the goal is to prevent a repeat of the hatred and fear that led to the killings of over 6 million Jews, as well as many others considered less than human, by the Nazis. Reading both fictional and true accounts of young people who were impacted by the Holocaust provides a similar educational experience. Below are 13 gripping books about the Holocaust for young readers of all ages.

These titles are perfect for reading at any time throughout the year, especially surrounding the International Holocaust Day of Remembrance on January 27 or the U.S. Days of Remembrance which happen in April or early May. They help deepen awareness of the suffering incurred, as well as the courage and resilience expressed, during this tragic period in our world’s history.

Recommended for Ages 7–9

The butterfly by patrica pollaco.

Set in a small village in Nazi-occupied France, a young girl named Monique believes that she sees a ghost in her room. She realizes that it’s a real girl, Sevrine, who is hiding from the Nazis. Full of beautiful artwork, this picture book by a prolific and beloved author makes this emotional and challenging topic engaging and relatable for younger readers.

Buy it: The Butterfly on Amazon

I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944 (#9) by Lauren Tarshis

This bestselling historical fiction story effectively captures the darkness as well as the glimmers of light from this time period. After the Nazis take their father, Max and his sister Zena become stranded in a Jewish ghetto. This is a heart-pounding tale of survival and resilience.

Buy it: I Survived the Nazi Invasion on Amazon

Lisa of Willesden Lane: A True Story of Music and Survival During World War II by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen

Lisa is a young musical prodigy living in Vienna before the start of World War II. As Austria becomes unsafe for Jewish families like hers, her parents make the difficult decision to use their only safe passage ticket to send her to London. Leaving behind her siblings and parents is only bearable because she is able to share her music with the other refugees. This story offers an important perspective on the impact of the Holocaust on those who escaped and shows the power of music to uplift the world.

Buy it: Lisa of Willesden Lane: A True Story of Music and Survival During World War II on Amazon

Maurice and His Dictionary by Cary Fagan and Enzo Lord Mariano

This graphic novel weaves humor and sadness together to share the story of Maurice and his family as they flee from Belgium through multiple European countries, eventually landing as refugees in an internment camp in Jamaica. Maurice keeps his beloved dictionary close to him as he strives to continue his education no matter where he is living. A tribute to the spirit of resilience and determination expressed by those forced to create new lives in new countries due to the terror of the Nazis.

Buy it: Maurice and His Dictionary on Amazon

Recommended for Ages 9–13

Hidden: a child’s story of the holocaust by loic dauvillier, marc lizano, and greg salsedo.

One night when Elsa and her grandmother Dounia can’t sleep, Dounia shares her experiences as a young Jewish girl living in Paris during the Nazi regime. Neighbors and friends hide her after Nazis send her parents to a concentration camp. Horrific historical events are softened through beautiful illustrations and a gentle, touching writing style in this critically acclaimed graphic novel.

Buy it: Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust on Amazon

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

The power of the Danish Resistance to stand up against the darkness of the Nazis is highlighted in this Newbery Award–winning classic. The family of 10-year-old Annemarie offers to care for her Jewish best friend, Ellen Rosen, to keep her from being taken by Hitler’s soldiers. But can they truly protect her? This captivating, suspenseful story shows the trials and tribulations experienced by young people during this time.

Buy it: Number the Stars on Amazon

Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz

In this story, the character Michael O’Shaunessey, the son of the Irish ambassador to Germany, tells the story from his point of view. Like all German youth, the Hitler Youth movement forces him to join them. But he has a secret: He is a spy for the Allies. He risks everything in hopes of the Nazis not discovering him before completing his mission. This riveting story offers a unique perspective into the horrific actions that Nazis brainwashed young people in Germany to commit under the guise of loyalty.

Buy it: Projekt 1065 on Amazon

Resistance by Jennifer Nielsen

Chaya, a Jewish teenager living in Poland, loses her siblings to the Nazis. As a result, she wants to make a difference in the fight against the enemy soldiers. She serves as a courier delivering messages between Jews and then joins a resistance cell. She finds herself immersed in the dangerous battles of the Warsaw Ghetto. This is an intense and spellbinding historical fiction book about the Holocaust that shows the power of courage and perseverance, no matter what your age.

Buy it: Resistance on Amazon

Recommended for Ages 13 and Up

Anne frank: diary of a young girl by anne frank.

First published in 1947, this memoir is one of the most well-known books about the Holocaust. It helps readers understand the horrors of the Holocaust through the lens of a young Jewish girl living in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. This compilation of Anne’s real diary entries from ages 13 to 15 chronicles both her experiences and emotions while hiding in the Secret Annex with her family for two years before the Nazis discovered them. Her memoir captures moments filled with fear. In addition, Anne reflects on the touching and even humorous times of a traumatic situation and the more relatable ups and downs of adolescence.

Buy it: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition on Amazon

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Death itself narrates this timeless classic. A mother gives her young Jewish daughter, Liesel, to a poor German family in an attempt to save her life during World War II. Liesel steals books that Nazi supporters plan to burn. Despite the trauma of her current life, the books become a source of hope for her and those that she shares them with. A beautifully crafted and emotionally gripping fictional story layered with accurate, historical details, this exemplifies some of the best books about the Holocaust.

Buy it: The Book Thief on Amazon

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb

This setting of this narrative nonfiction book is 15 years after the end of World War II. It shares the true story of a group of Israeli spies who captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazis, who fled to Argentina to escape punishment after the war. This young reader adaptation humanizes the characters and provides a pulse-pounding, unforgettable story about a lesser-known perpetrator of the Holocaust.

Buy it: The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi on Amazon

Night by Elie Wiesel

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel shares his firsthand account of living in the Nazi death camps as a teenager. His retelling of the horrific experiences he endured is eye-opening. It also shows the depth of emotions, from guilt and shame to gratitude and joy, felt by survivors like him. This is one of the most powerful books about the Holocaust and is a part of many high school curricula. This is a must-read for any young adult or grown-up as one of the best books about the Holocaust.

Buy it: Night on Amazon

This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke

This is one of the books about the Holocaust that provides a glimpse into the aftermath in Eastern Europe. Csilla is a Hungarian Jew living in Budapest in 1956. Her country was torn apart by the war, by Stalin, by the Soviets, as well as its own people. Yet she loves her city. However, her past is complicated. Her beloved father was persecuted for sins he didn’t commit as a Jew. Then he was exonerated despite sins he committed as a Communist Party leader. Elements of Jewish mysticism and other fantastical religious figures are woven into this gripping story about rebellion, cultural identity, and life’s purpose.

Buy it: This Rebel Heart on Amazon

Looking for books for middle schoolers? Check out our list of the Best Books for Middle Schoolers .

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New Research Reveals How the Nazis Targeted Transgender People

Last year, a German court acknowledged the possibility that trans people were persecuted by the Nazis

Laurie Marhoefer, The Conversation

In the fall of 2022, a German court heard an unusual case .

It was a civil lawsuit that grew out of a feud on Twitter about whether transgender people were victims of the Holocaust. Though there is no longer much debate about whether gay men and lesbians were persecuted by the Nazis, there’s been very little scholarship on trans people during this period.

The court took expert statements from historians before issuing an opinion that essentially acknowledges that trans people were victimized by the Nazi regime.

This is an important case. It was the first time a court acknowledged the possibility that trans people were persecuted in Nazi Germany. It was followed a few months later by the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, formally releasing a statement recognizing trans and cisgender queer people as victims of fascism.

Up until the past few years, there had been little research on trans people under the Nazi regime. Historians like myself are now uncovering more cases , like that of Toni Simon.

Being transgender during the Weimar Republic

In 1933, the year that Adolf Hitler took power, the police in Essen, Germany, revoked Simon’s permit to dress as a woman in public. Simon, who was in her mid-40s, had been living as a woman for many years.

The Weimar Republic , the more tolerant democratic government that existed before Hitler, recognized the rights of trans people, though in a begrudging, limited way. Under the republic, police granted trans people permits like the one Simon had.

In the 1930s, transgender people were called “ transvestites ,” which is rarely a preferred term for trans people today, but at the time approximated what’s now meant by “transgender.” The police permits were called “transvestite certificates,” and they exempted a person from the laws against cross-dressing. Under the republic, trans people could also change their names legally, though they had to pick from a short, preapproved list.

In Berlin, transgender people published several magazines and had a political club. Some glamorous trans women worked at the internationally famous Eldorado cabaret . The sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld , who ran Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Science , advocated for the rights of transgender people.

The rise of Nazi Germany destroyed this relatively open environment. The Nazis shut down the magazines, the Eldorado and Hirschfeld’s institute. Most people who held “transvestite certificates,” as Simon did, had them revoked or watched helplessly as police refused to honor them.

That was just the beginning of the trouble.

“Draconian measures” against trans people

In Nazi Germany, transgender people were not used as a political wedge issue in the way they are today. There was little public discussion of trans people.

What the Nazis did say about them, however, was chilling.

The author of a 1938 book on “the problem of transvestitism” wrote that before Hitler was in power, there was not much that could be done about transgender people, but that now, in Nazi Germany, they could be put in concentration camps or subjected to forced castration. That was good, he believed, because the “asocial mindset” of trans people and their supposedly frequent “criminal activity … justifies draconian measures by the state.”

Simon was a brave person. I first came across her police file when I was researching trans people at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . The Essen police knew Simon as the sassy proprietor of an underground club where LGBTQ people gathered. In the mid-1930s, she was hauled into court for criticizing the Nazi regime. By then, the Gestapo had had enough of her. Simon was a danger to youth, a Gestapo officer wrote. Sending her to a concentration camp was “absolutely necessary.”

I am not certain what happened to Simon. Her file ends abruptly, with the Gestapo planning her arrest. But there are no actual arrest papers. Hopefully, she evaded the police.

Other trans women did not escape. At the Hamburg State Archive , I read about H. Bode, who often went out in public dressed as a woman and dated men. Under the Weimar Republic, she held a transvestite certificate. Nazi police went after her for “cross-dressing” and for having sex with men. They considered her male, so her relationships were homosexual and illegal. They sent her to the concentration camp Buchenwald, where she was murdered.

Liddy Bacroff of Hamburg also had a transvestite pass under the republic. She made her living selling sex to male clients. After 1933, the police went after her. They wrote that she was “fundamentally a transvestite” and a “morals criminal of the worst sort.” She too was sent to a camp, Mauthausen, and murdered.

Trans Germans previously misgendered

For a long time, the public didn’t know the stories of trans people in Nazi Germany.

Earlier histories tended to misgender trans women, labeling them as men. This is odd given that when you read the records of their police interrogations, they are often remarkably clear about their gender identity, even though they were not helping their cases at all by doing so.

Bacroff, for example, told the police, “My sense of my sex is fully and completely that of a woman.”

There was also confusion caused by a few cases that, by chance, came to light first. In these cases, police acted less violently. For example, there is a well-known case from Berlin where police renewed a trans man’s “transvestite certificate” after he spent some months in a concentration camp. Historians initially took this case to be representative. Now that we have a lot more cases, we can see that it is an outlier. Police normally revoked the certificates.

A through line to today

Today, right-wing attacks against trans people in the United States are intensifying.

Though the American Academy of Pediatrics and every major medical association approve of gender-affirming health care for trans kids, Republican politicians have banned it in 22 states, with even more moving to prohibit it.

Gender-affirming medicine is now over 100 years old—and it has roots in Weimar Germany . It had never before been legally restricted in the U.S. Yet Missouri has essentially banned it for adults, and other states are trying to restrict adult care. A host of other anti-trans bills are moving through state legislatures.

I find it fitting, then, that A Transparent Musical premiered this spring in Los Angeles. In the show, fabulously dressed trans Berliners sing and dance in defiance of Nazi thugs.

It’s a reminder that attacks on trans people are nothing new—and that many of them are straight out of the Nazi playbook.

Editor’s Note, September 25, 2023: An earlier version of this story noted that the author’s testimony was submitted to a German court. While the testimony was submitted to a lawyer arguing in the court case, that lawyer did not ultimately submit it to the court. In addition, the story was edited in the third paragraph to more accurately reflect the decision of the German court.

This article is republished from the Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Laurie Marhoefer is a historian of queer and transgender people in Weimar and Nazi Germany.

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Book Burning

Beginning on May 10, 1933, Nazi-dominated student groups carried out public burnings of books they claimed were “un-German.” The book burnings took place in 34 university towns and cities. Works of prominent Jewish, liberal, and leftist writers ended up in the bonfires. The book burnings stood as a powerful symbol of Nazi intolerance and censorship.

The Nazi university student association created blacklists of works by literary and political figures such as Bertolt Brecht, Erich Maria Remarque, and Ernest Hemingway that were to be thrown into the flames.

In the aftermath of the book burnings, the Nazi regime raided book stores, libraries, and publishers’ warehouses to confiscate materials it deemed dangerous or “un-German.”

The Nazi book burnings provoked international criticism from intellectuals and the press. They saw it as a barbaric act that was out of keeping with a modern, civilized society.

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Introduction.

Book burning has a long and dark history.

Book burning refers to the ritual destruction by fire of books or other written materials. Usually carried out in a public context, the burning of books represents an element of censorship and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or political opposition to the materials in question.

The burning of books under the Nazi regime on May 10, 1933, is perhaps the most famous book burning in history.

A Nineteenth-Century Precedent

The May 1933 book burning in Nazi Germany had a precedent in nineteenth century Germany. In 1817, German student associations ( Burschenschaften ) chose the 300th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses to hold a festival at the Wartburg, a castle in Thuringia where Luther had sought sanctuary after his excommunication. The students, demonstrating for a unified country—Germany was then a patchwork of states—burned anti-national and reactionary texts and literature which the students viewed as “Un-German.”

"Synchronizing" Culture with Nazi Ideology

In 1933, Nazi German authorities aimed to synchronize professional and cultural organizations with Nazi ideology and policy ( Gleichschaltung ). Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda , began an effort to bring German arts and culture in line with Nazi goals. The government purged cultural organizations of Jewish and other officials alleged to be politically suspect or who performed or created art works which Nazi ideologues labeled “degenerate.”

In an effort to synchronize the literary community, Goebbels had a strong ally in the National Socialist German Students’ Association ( Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund, or NSDStB). German university students were among the vanguard of the early Nazi movement, and in the late 1920s, many filled the ranks of various Nazi formations. The ultra-nationalism and antisemitism of middle-class, secular student organizations had been intense and vocal for decades. After World War I , many students opposed the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and found in National Socialism a suitable vehicle for their political discontent and hostility.

On April 6, 1933, the Nazi German Student Association's Main Office for Press and Propaganda proclaimed a nationwide “Action against the Un-German Spirit,” to climax in a literary purge or “cleansing” ( Säuberung) by fire. Local chapters were to supply the press with releases and commissioned articles, offer blacklists of “un-German” authors, sponsor well-known Nazi figures to speak at public gatherings, and negotiate for radio broadcast time.

On April 8 the students’ association also drafted its twelve "theses"—a deliberate evocation of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses: declarations which described the fundamentals of a "pure" national language and culture. Placards publicized the theses, which attacked “Jewish intellectualism,” asserted the need to “purify” the German language and literature, and demanded that universities be centers of German nationalism. The students described the “action” as a response to a worldwide Jewish “smear campaign” against Germany and an affirmation of traditional German values.

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In a symbolic act of ominous significance, on May 10, 1933, university students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books, presaging an era of state censorship and control of culture. On the evening of May 10, in most university towns, right-wing students marched in torchlight parades “against the un-German spirit.” The scripted rituals called for high Nazi officials, professors, university rectors, and university student leaders to address the participants and spectators.

At the meeting places, students threw the pillaged and “unwanted” books onto bonfires with great ceremony, band-playing, and so-called “ fire oaths .” In Berlin, some 40,000 persons gathered in the Opernplatz to hear Joseph Goebbels deliver a fiery address: “No to decadence and moral corruption!” Goebbels enjoined the crowd. “Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Gläser , Erich Kästner.”

Which Authors and Works were Targeted?

Among the authors whose books student leaders burned that night were well-known socialists such as Bertolt Brecht and August Bebel ; the founder of the concept of communism, Karl Marx ; critical “bourgeois” writers like the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler; and “corrupting foreign influences,” among them American author Ernest Hemingway .

The fires also consumed several writings of the 1929 Nobel Prize-winning German author Thomas Mann , whose support of the Weimar Republic and critique of fascism raised Nazi ire. Also burned were works of international best-selling author Erich Maria Remarque . Nazi ideologues vilified Remarque's unflinching description of war, All Quiet on the Western Front , as "a literary betrayal of the soldiers of the World War." Works by early German literary critics of the Nazi regime were also burned, such as those of Erich Kästner, Heinrich Mann, and Ernst Gläser .

Other writers included on the blacklists were American authors Jack London , Theodore Dreiser , and Helen Keller , whose belief in social justice encouraged her to champion the disabled, pacifism, improved conditions for industrial workers, and women's voting rights.

Jewish authors numbered among the writers whose works were burned, among them some of the most famous contemporary writers of the day, such as Franz Werfel , Max Brod , and Stefan Zweig .

Also among those works burned were the writings of beloved nineteenth-century German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote in his 1820–1821 play Almansor the famous admonition, “ Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen ": "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people."

Not all book burnings took place on May 10, as the German Student Association had planned. Some were postponed a few days because of rain. Others, based on local chapter preference, took place on June 21, the summer solstice, a traditional date for bonfire celebrations in Germany.

Nonetheless, in 34 university towns across Germany the May 10th "Action against the Un-German Spirit" was a success, receiving widespread newspaper coverage. In some cities, notably Berlin, radio broadcasts brought the speeches, songs, and ceremonial chants "live" to countless German listeners. The promotion of "Aryan" culture and the suppression of other forms of artistic production was yet another Nazi effort to "purify" Germany.

Why do Totalitarian Regimes Often Target Culture?

In this short film, a Holocaust survivor, an Iranian author, an American literary critic, and two Museum historians discuss the Nazi book burnings and why totalitarian regimes often target culture, particularly literature.

Series: Book Burning

Immediate American Responses to the Nazi Book Burnings

Nazi Book Burnings: Recurring Symbol

Culture in the Third Reich: Disseminating the Nazi Worldview

Critical thinking questions.

• If Jews were the principal target during the Holocaust, why were books written by non-Jewish authors burned?
• How did the German public react? What was reaction like outside of Germany?
• Why do oppressive regimes promote or support censorship and book burning? Why might this be a warning sign for mass atrocity?
• How can knowledge of the events in Germany and Europe before the Nazis came to power help citizens today respond to threats of genocide and mass atrocity in the world?

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