Dictionary of the Holocaust : Biography, Geography, and Terminology

This concise, easy-to-use resource on the Holocaust is rich in factual and statistical information, and provides a comprehensive compilation of the people and terms that are essential for an understanding of the Holocaust. In 2,000 entries, it profiles major personalities, covers concentration and death camps, cities and countries, and significant events. Also included are important terms translated from German, French, Polish, Yiddish, and twelve other languages. Biographical entries give a brief history, the person's significance, and their historical context. Geographical entries pinpoint exact locations using other cities or countries as landmarks, and give the number of Jewish inhabitants before Nazi occupation, and the percentage of Jews killed. Historical background is provided for such events as Kristallnacht and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and entries on concentration and death camps give details on the nationalities interned, the camp's specific location, and its history.

This reference is impressive in its scope and includes major perpetrators, bystanders, collaborators, victims, rescuers such as Righteous Gentiles, Jewish ghetto fighters, and partisans. It also explores the role of women and the complicity of physicians and industrialists during the Holocaust more fully than any other reference. This dictionary provides the information needed by students whose understanding of the Holocaust is limited by the absence of a single accessible research text.

ERIC JOSEPH EPSTEIN is Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University in Harrisburg, where he teaches Holocaust Studies. He also coordinates the taping of Holocaust survivors in central Pennsylvania and has written numerous articles.

PHILIP ROSEN is Director of the Holocaust Awareness Museum at Gratz College./e He has taught at both the secondary and college level and has instructed teachers in the areas of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He has written many articles on genocide and has interviewed many survivors and liberators.