Recommended Reading

This is the story of Jan Karski⊃;s heroic actions during World War II. Karski was a young Polish diplomat who joined the Polish underground movement where he served as a liaison carrying news of Nazi actions from Poland to the Allies. Karski survived imprisonment in a Soviet detention camp and torture by the Nazis. He investigated the treatment of the Jews under Nazi occupation, visiting the Warsaw Ghetto and documenting Nazi plans to exterminate the Jews of Europe. He brought this important news to the leaders and intellectuals of the Western world including H.G. Wells and President Roosevelt. Some reacted viscerally to his message, some with disbelief and indifference.

It has long been alleged that officials in the Roosevelt administration knew about Hitler's plans to murder all the Jews in Nazi Europe — and that these officials did little to prevent the massacre, refusing asylum to shiploads of Jewish refugees and failing to order the bombing of railway lines leading to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Wyman examines the evidence, concluding that senior American officials could indeed have saved many thousands, if not millions, of European Jews by intervening earlier. Wyman suggests that a combination of antisemitism and indifference to anything not perceived as being of direct strategic importance to the United States indirectly led to countless deaths.

In this comprehensive history of the Holocaust, Yahil focuses on the Nazis and their anti-Jewish programs before, during, and after World War II.

This facsimile edition of notes and sketches collected by Marianka Zadikow provides glimpses into the individual lives of prisoners in Terezin during the last few months of the Holocaust. In the introduction Dwork tells the story of the Terezin camp and how Marianka and her family fared while imprisoned there.

Zapruder compiles diaries of 14 youths from all over Europe. Their stories give the reader a more comprehensive and personal perspective of the Holocaust. For each diary, Zapruder gives a clear overview, including historical context and biography. In addition to the geographical range of the narratives, each one truly lends itself to the complexity of the human condition.

This collection of essays, representing three generations of Polish and Jewish scholars, is the first attempt since the fall of Communism to reassess the existing historiography of Polish-Jewish relations just before, during, and after the Second World War. These essays challenge commonly held views on both sides of the debates.