Awards
2008 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
Synopses & Reviews
The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise. The Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedländer's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of this most systematic and sustained of modern genocides. In this unparalleled work based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.
Review
"Friedländer never lets the reader forget the human and personal meanings of the historical processes he is describing....The result is an account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel." New York Times Book Review
Review
"[Friedlander] eloquently illustrates the millions of individual tragedies through extensive use of Jewish diaries. He avoids delving into the motivations for the anti-Semitism of Hitler and his cohorts; for him, such blind hatred is beyond true comprehension." Booklist
Synopsis
"Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany's mass murder of Europe's Jews. . . . An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel. . . . A masterpiece that will endure." -- New York Times Book Review
The Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedl nder's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of the Holocaust, the most systematic and sustained of modern genocides.
The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise.
In this unparalleled work--based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs--the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.
About the Author
Born in Prague, Saul Friedländer spent his boyhood in Nazi-occupied France. He is now a professor of history at UCLA and has written numerous books on Nazi Germany and World War II.