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Summary: Indispensable book for understanding the Holocaust
Review: The more people hear about the Holocaust in our Holocaust-drenched culture, the less they seem to know about it. Most people's understanding of the Holocaust reduces to simplistic abstractions and cliches, particularly the notion that the worst thing about the Nazi war against the Jews was that it was impersonal and bureaucratic. This book is the antidote to all that. By tracing in specific detail, from month to month and year to year, what the Nazi regime actually did to the Jewish communities of Europe that fell under its power, Martin Gilbert gives the reader a more vivid and concrete sense of the Holocaust than can be found in any other book (or museum) on the subject. Contrary to the focus of the popular mind on Auschwitz and gas chambers, the Holocaust did not consist of one event or one crime. It consisted of innumerable, specific crimes, in a steadily mounting unleashing of cruelty that only an epic-length treatment such as Mr. Gilbert's could adequately portray. This is an indispensable book that will forever change your understanding of one of history's central events.
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Summary: There are no words
Review: There are no words to describe the Evils written about in this book. But the words Martin Gilbert has do describe with historical precision the destruction of the Jews of Europe by the Nazis and their various allies. The book is difficult and painful to read because of the horrible stories it tells. And as one reviewer on Amazon has said this is a record not of one crime but of thousands of crimes done every day, not of one cruelty but of millions of cruelties. One of the features of this historical accounting which may seem to some to disturb the flow of the overall historical narrative but which to me seemed to give tremendous weight and power of the book is the account of individual lives, the stories of those people who actually suffered and went through the Shoah. Naming of names in this way, and telling the stories of the ' little people' seems to me to give the account a human strength that more general accounts lack.
This work is as I said very difficult to read because of its painful subject matter. Reading it one certainly learns about ' man's inhumanity to man' the cruelty Mankind is capable of. One learns to know how certain specific peoples seem to display special tendencies for that cruelty. One learns about the worst chapter in all of Jewish history , and of the surviving remnant of it.
Who wishes to know and understand the full character of human history must read this book, or one like it.
G-d help us all.
Rating:
Summary: horrific
Review: this is a vast and comprehensive study of an event that hasblighted the lives of all humanity whether or not they realise it.that said,it is also a fascinating book though not suited to someone of a permenantly sunny disposition.having no axe to grind i have to ask myself-why did this happen?have the jews contributed to their own downfall?having examined anti semitism i have concluded that it is very largely provoked by jealousy.the jews have been too successful for their own good throughout history and thishas unfortunately led to the thoughtless prejudice of the mob being directed their way.the best aspect of this book is it's neutrality,it allows the facts to speak for themselves.the book is one big reminder of how mercilessly cruel the human animal can be and how the strong can mobilise to crush the weak,all terrible stuff for anyone who wishes we couldall get along and that ALL our lives were flled with peace justice andcontentment and not subject to the primitive stupidity ofthe foolish manipulated mass.
Rating:
Summary: IMPRESSIVE!
Review: This is an imperative book to read,especially at these times that this tragedy is being denied,trivialized and minimized by many,particulary in Europe.
The author recorded first hand testimonials and suddenly the abstract figure of 6,000.000 (Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis became)becomes a personal record of suffering.
The sadistic cruelty is beyond description.Who was more udehumanized the Nazi officer who trained his dog to bite the testicles of his victims and making fun about it or the many guards who crashed systematically babies heads to dead in front of their mothers?
How was it possible for those thousands of torturers to go back to their homes and express love to their wives and children and their parents and go back to their "job".Insane.
On the other side there are testimonies of bravery and faith of the victims.
At one point my wife ask me why I'm reading this book who challenge my emotions.The answer is,after reading of those who didn't lose their faith in God it stregthen my own faith.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ!
Review: This is both a moving and disturbing book. I feel it should be read by all. To use the words of the survivors - We must never forget.
Rating: 
Summary: A good summary of Hitler's war against the Jews
Review: This is definitely a must read for any student of the Holocaust. Gilbert, however, fails to focus on the numerous other victims, such as Poles and Soviet POWs. In other words, he does not attempt to analyze the Holocaust from every angle. In order to understand the evolution of the Holocaust, one must be aware of the euthanasia program under Hitler and other oppressive measures against criminals, communists, asocials, and other "undesirables" which were practiced under the Third Reich long before the extermination of the Jews began.
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Summary: A Warning From History !
Review: This is likely to be the standard history of the holocaust. It is meticulously researched and documented.A study of the systematic destruction of European Jewry. A masterpiece chronicling an attempt at modern day genocide. Jews were subjected to horrific, inhumane suffering and murder in ghettoes, slave labour camps, concentration camps and forced marches. Atrocities that were well documented by the Nazi murder-machine. A chilling but essential possession and reference that needs to be read and re-read. I have visited many of the sites referred to, indeed most of the still remaining concentration camps in Poland. With the alarming increase in anti-Semitism now prevalent worldwide, especially again in Europe, books such as this are crucial, indispensable tools that must prevent us from allowing society to follow this path again.
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Summary: Compelling And Comprehensive History Of The Holocaust!
Review: When one of the world's most eminent historians takes on the single most amazing phenomenon of the century, the Holocaust, it gives one pause for thought. So here we have Sir Martin Gilbert, a noted Holocaust authority, writing masterfully about the events leading up to and including the systematic persecution, deportation and murder of the Jews of Europe. His stirring and singular narrative is regularly punctuated by a number of poignant and shocking eyewitness accounts of many who lived through those numbing events. The test is extremely approachable and easy to read, so that the non-historian can appreciate the breadth and scope of his recounting of the events during the 12-year reign of terror levied by the National Socialists in Nazi Germany. His approach is chronological, much like that employed in his best-selling three volume series on the 20th century. While he relies heavily on established secondary sources for his documentation, the power of his prose and his well-organized approach makes this an entertaining and educational tome to venture into. Although nowhere near as comprehensive as some other tomes such as Klaus Fischer's "History Of An Obsession", he does trace the centuries' long tradition of anti-Semitism culminating in the official state sanctioned approach codified in the institutionalized Nuremberg laws. In all this, Gilbert brilliantly employs survivor's recollections to paint the atrocities in the hues and colors of real human beings, ordinary and identifiable individuals caught in the insanity of the Third Reich. Furthermore, he pursues their individual identities and humanity by giving the reader information on the postwar futures of these people. So much has been written about the Holocaust that it is difficult to imagine much new or novel to arise some fifty years after the end of the war. Yet the stage always remains open for the unusual display of finely crafted historical perspectives and brilliantly executed prose. The brilliance in this dazzling book is, as Oscar Schindler would have said, in the presentation. Although I have read a number of other books about these times and events that were more detailed, more graphic, or more comprehensive, this is without a doubt the single most impressive, cohesive, and authoritative volume I have read to date regarding the Holocaust in its enormity, and placed in an understandable and comprehensible context. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in owning the single best one-volume book summarizing and explaining the realities of the Holocaust.
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