A Holocaust Reader (Library of Jewish Studies)

An unflinching insight into the lives of those who experienced the Holocaust.

As the Nazis rose to power, all over Europe, Jews conspired against their persecutors to keep an historical and documentary record. Some records were buried underground; others were hidden in secure and protected places; still others were transmitted to trustworthy non-Jews.

Collected here, in this invaluable work of scholarship, are more than sixty fully-annotated, primary source documents. Selected from both private papers, including hidden archives, and official records, these documents chart the course of the Holocaust and support the author's monumental War Against the Jews: 1933-1945.

All the documents, but one, are contemporary with the events they describe; most appear in English for the first time translated from German, Yiddish, Polish, French, and Hebrew; all are collected and authenticated by Dawidowicz.

Together, this combination of petitions, speeches, legislation and decrees, field reports and secret orders, personal diaries, songs from the ghettoes, and Jewish records of the Holocaust fills out and illustrates the historical narrative of the Holocaust with immediacy and power.

Lucy S. Dawidowicz was a prominent Jewish American scholar, author, and professor known for her extensive work on Jewish history, particularly regarding the Holocaust and Eastern European Jewry. Born to Polish immigrant parents in New York City, she was deeply influenced by her family's secular Jewish culture and commitment to education. 

Her notable works include "The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945," which argues that the Nazi plan to exterminate Jews was a core goal rather than a mere consequence of the war. Recognized as a pioneering voice in Holocaust studies, Dawidowicz contributed significantly to the understanding of anti-Semitism, Jewish history and identity, and the impact of the Holocaust.