cover image Jews in Nazi Berlin: From Kristallnacht to Liberation

Jews in Nazi Berlin: From Kristallnacht to Liberation

. University of Chicago Press, $40 (392pp) ISBN 978-0-226-52157-2

German researchers Meyer and Sch\xFCtz, with help from Berlin synagogue director Simon, have compiled an amazing volume of facts and personal accounts into a record of Jewish life under the Nazis. Visiting everything from the eve of Kristallnacht, the terrifying ""night of broken glass,"" through the liberation of the concentration camps, the trio limit their focus, to telling effect, to the thousands of Jews living in Berlin, the capital of the Nazi regime, as the world plunged into WWII. A progression of hardships are vividly recounted through the stories of individual Berlin families (such as Garb\xE1tys, whose successful cigarette factory was seized for Aryan businessmen), slowly stripped of their rights, their livelihoods, and, ultimately, their lives. Accompanying these accounts of destruction is a stunning collection of photos and documents. Offered for the first time in English, this volume has already made an important addition to Holocaust literature in Germany, where it was originally published in 2000. 188 color and b&w photos. (Dec.)