# Informative books about the Holocaust **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 18, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596 "2013-08-18T23:03:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/1 "2013-08-18T23:03:57Z")
So I’m after some light bedtime reading so thought that a book about the worst thing that has ever happened would be a good place to start. What I’m after is something that focuses on the experiences of the victims rather than something more dry that just gives stats and places etc, more of a narrative history. Anyone got any informative recommendations? ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/2 "2013-08-18T23:14:22Z")
I have absolutely no doubt what the book for you is. [The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert](http://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-History-Europe-During-Second/dp/0805003487/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376867412&sr=1-1&keywords=the+holocaust&tag=donations09-20). It’s some 800 pages but is utterly compelling, in large part because of exactly the qualities you mention in your OP, i.e. it focuses on the experiences of individuals (and, yes, of course, it’s got the stats, too). And, that can make for some pretty tragic accounts. I guess that’s another way of saying that it can get a bit depressing. But there’s no way of escaping that in any book about the Holocaust, especially one that describes individual stories as much the collective horror. I cannot over-emphasize that this book seems to be _exactly_ what you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/3 "2013-08-19T00:26:33Z")
Thanks **KarlGauss** ; judging by the reviews it is exactly the thing that I’m looking to educate myself on. Frankly it looks like the type of book every adult on Earth should be encouraged to read. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/4 "2013-08-19T01:18:58Z")
One small caveat: the first hundred or so pages, which, IIRC, basically cover 1933 - 1939 are a bit of an anti-climax (?ante climax) since the numbers of victims affected are _relatively_ small and the degree of cruelty inflicted upon them is _relatively_ light. But Gilbert’s style is one of meticulous documentation, and he chronicles the pre-WWII, pre ‘Final Solution’ years in that manner, too: with meticulous attention to detail and references. Bottom line, don’t give up early. ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/5 "2013-08-19T05:26:12Z")
_In The Garden of The Beasts_ by Erik Larson gives a good narrative of events leading to the Holocaust. It focuses on an American ambassador and his family taking a post in Berlin in the 1930s, as Hitler rises in power. It’s probably a little off tangent from what you’re looking for: there are no descriptions of concentration camps or anything. But it is people-centric rather than stats-centric, and some of the events will give you chills. A more relevant book is _We All Wore Stars: Memories of Anne Frank From Her Classmates_ by Theo Coster. Fairly self-explanatory. In the public library the Dewy number for Holocaust books is 940.5318 – a rather popular section. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/6 "2013-08-19T09:10:26Z")
You may also consider _The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery_ by Captain Witold Pilecki (a translation from his Polish report). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/7 "2013-08-19T13:29:08Z")
One of the definitive survivor accounts is _Night_, by Elie Wiesel. It’s pretty short and is usually packaged as a trilogy with two of his other stories. ---
**Author:** ![Mixolydian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Mixolydian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mixolydian)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/8 "2013-08-19T16:10:01Z")
For something that’s definitely not dry, may I also recommend [Maus](http://www.amazon.com/Maus-Survivors-Father-Bleeds-History/dp/0394747232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376927969&sr=8-1) and the followup, [Maus II](http://www.amazon.com/Maus-II-Survivors-Troubles-Began/dp/0679729771/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1376927969&sr=8-3). It’s comic book artist Art Spiegelman’s retelling of his father’s experiences. I also found Jerzy Kosinski’s [The Painted Bird](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Bird) heavy and intriguing, about a Jewish boy on the run in Europe during WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/9 "2013-08-19T20:05:28Z")
> [@Mixolydian](#): > > For something that’s definitely not dry, may I also recommend [Maus](http://www.amazon.com/Maus-Survivors-Father-Bleeds-History/dp/0394747232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376927969&sr=8-1) and the followup, [Maus II](http://www.amazon.com/Maus-II-Survivors-Troubles-Began/dp/0679729771/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1376927969&sr=8-3). It’s comic book artist Art Spiegelman’s retelling of his father’s experiences. Oh, duh. I can’t believe I forgot this one. I’ll double up the recommendation. It’s an extraordinary work of art. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/10 "2013-08-19T20:35:05Z")
I came to post \*\*\*Night \*\*\*(above), as well as _ **Babi Yar** _ (one chapter in particular is a woman’s experience surviving a mass execution). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/11 "2013-08-19T21:02:01Z")
There’s _The Theory and Practice of Hell_ by Eugene Kogon. Kogon was a prisoner at Buchenwald and wrote his book on how the concentration camp system operated based on what he personally witnessed and postwar documents. A more general history is _The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945_ by Lucy Dawidowicz. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/12 "2013-08-19T21:19:42Z")
[Treblinka](http://www.amazon.com/Treblinka-Jean-Francois-Steiner/dp/0452011248/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376947053&sr=1-1&keywords=treblinka) They actually managed to take over the camp and burn it to the ground. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/13 "2013-08-19T21:59:41Z")
At the risk of overdoing it with suggestions, there are (at least) three other books you might consider: [If This is a Man](http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Auschwitz-Primo-Levi/dp/0684826801/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376948644&sr=1-2&keywords=if+this+is+a+man&tag=donations09-20) (Primo Levi) (US title ‘Survival in Auschwitz’). In my opinion, this is the best first person account of what is was like to _live_ in Auschwitz. That shouldn’t be too surprising given Levi’s literary and philosophic genius. [Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account](http://www.amazon.com/Auschwitz-Doctors-Eyewitness-Account-ebook/dp/B004SUO5JA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376948930&sr=1-1&tag=donations09-20) by Miklos Nyiszli. A horror story. Unforgettable. [We Wept Without Tears](http://www.amazon.com/Wept-Without-Tears-Testimonies-Sonderkommando/dp/0300106513/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376949019&sr=1-2&tag=donations09-20) by Gideon Greif. A collection of statements and stories by some of the very few members of the _Sonderkommando_ at Auschwitz who survived. These are the words of those men who shepherded the victims into the gas chambers. Important if for no other reason than for the consistency of the recounting of the events. About seven or eight (IIRC) eye-witness accounts of Hell. As an aside, The Garden of Beasts is a terrific book but to say it has anything to do with The Holocaust is a huge stretch (as **Renifer** noted). The Painted Bird by Kosinski is an amazing work (whether plagiarized or not) but has more to do with the horrors of Eastern Europe in general during WWII rather than The Holocaust. Maus is also superb, but, IMO, should not be your first read on the subject. It is especially good (and poignant) with respect to the lasting psychological scars suffered by Holocaust survivors. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/14 "2013-08-19T23:49:32Z")
Okay, one more. [I Will Bear Witness (vol I](http://www.amazon.com/Will-Bear-Witness-Diary-1933-1941/dp/0375753788/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376954935&sr=1-1&keywords=i+will+bear+witness) and [vol II](http://www.amazon.com/Will-Bear-Witness-1942-1945-Diary/dp/0375756973/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376954935&sr=1-2&keywords=i+will+bear+witness)) by Victor Klemperer. This is a unique work, a diary of a Jewish man who spent the war (and 1933 to 1939) in Germany proper (mostly in Dresden). That his collection of sheets of paper survived, and was not found in any of the relentless, humiliating Gestapo searches he endured, is nothing short of miraculous. Miracle or not, when it comes to ‘first-person accounts’, can anything compare to a diary? The answer, in my opinion, is ‘of course not’. Beyond that, in Klemperer, we have not just an eye-witness - one who suffered little deaths every day for 12 years - but a highly intelligent, extremely well-read, brilliantly astute, eye-witness. A professor of French Literature, Klemperer recounts not just his and his wife’s own travails, but of life in Third Reich in general (made all the more remarkable given his Jewishness). When you finish this book, you will have an understanding, a perspective on The Holocaust, that you could have obtained no where else. Klemperer’s situation as a Jew in the heart of one of Nazi Germany’s premier cities ,when coupled with his uncanny perceptiveness, makes me confident to say that _there is no comparable book in existence._ Simply put: read it. You cannot go wrong. It is a unique and unforgettable masterpiece. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/15 "2013-08-20T18:10:22Z")
Thanks for the additional recommendations fellas; once I’ve finished with Martin Gilbert’s book I’ll definitely look into the others, hopefully I can get through it with a better understanding rather than just traumatising myself. Incidentally Cpt. Witold Pilecki has been one of my personal heroes ever since I first heard there was a man who \*volunteered \*for a death camp to gather intelligence. The man should have museums in every metropolis dedicated to his cast-adamantium balls alone. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/16 "2013-08-20T19:06:17Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > I have absolutely no doubt what the book for you is. > [The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert](http://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-History-Europe-During-Second/dp/0805003487/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376867412&sr=1-1&keywords=the+holocaust&tag=donations09-20). Seconded, I read that book a couple of years ago, a few hundred pages into it and I started to get a distinctly odd queasy feeling, there’s only so many times you can read ‘and all the Jewish citizens of village ‘X’ were taken out and shot’ or its equivalent before the sheer scale of things begins to hit home. Its very easy to get blase about The Holocaust _(and all the other examples of mans inhumanity to man)_ but we really shouldn’t. It has many interesting and memorable vignettes and personal stories in it as well. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/17 "2013-08-20T19:19:21Z")
Emphatically NOT a victim of the Holocaust, but, for a completely opposite perspective of life in the camps, Gitta Sereny’s interviews and biography of the commandant of both Sobibor and Treblinka, [Franz Stangl,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Stangl) [_Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience_](http://www.amazon.com/Into-That-Darkness-Examination-Conscience/dp/0394710355), are interesting reading. The bits I’ve read of it made me think that she took the interrogator’s maxim, “If you want them to talk, be their best friend,” and went a bit too far with it. And then there’s the wholly unnecessary ranting against the Catholic Church. Still, IMHO, it’s another interesting perspective on that inhuman crime. I think it’s more history than the oral history the OP is looking for, but I found Richard Rhodes’s book on the [Einsatzgruppen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen), _[Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust](http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Death-SS-Einsatzgruppen-Invention-Holocaust/dp/0375708227)_, to be fascinating, albeit numbing. There are oral accounts within it, but it’s certainly not a memoir like Primo Levi’s, If This Is A Man, or the essays within [_The Drowned and The Saved_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Drowned-Saved-Primo-Levi/dp/067972186X). ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/informative-books-about-the-holocaust/666596/18 "2013-08-21T21:27:03Z")
A very specific subject - Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz > **[Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins...](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-of-the-flames-lucette-matalon-lagnado/1102224309?ean=9780140169317)** > > During World War II, Nazi doctor Josef Mengele subjected some 3,000 twins to medical experiments of unspeakable horror; only 160 survived. In this remarkable narrative, the life of Auschwitz's Angel of Death is told in counterpoint to the lives of...