Martin Gilbert - The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War

The Holocaust

The Human Tragedy

Martin Gilbert

Copyright

The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy
Copyright 1985, 2014 by Martin Gilbert
Cover art, special contents, and Electronic Edition 2014 by RosettaBooks LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover jacket design by David Ter-Avanesyan/Ter33Design
Cover image credit WhiteHaven / Shutterstock.com
ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795337192

DEDICATED TO
Professor Alexander Lerner, two of whose daughters, aged five and three, were killed by the Nazis in 1941, and whose own sixteen-year struggle to leave the Soviet Union for Israel is now successfully concluded

Many people have helped me with advice and encouragement since I began collecting material for this book in 1979. Special thanks are due to a number of survivors who guided me in my researches, spoke to me about their own experiences, or gave me contemporary documents connected with their own fate and that of their families.

I was particularly helped during my researches by Rabbi Hugo Gryn, who not only told me of his own experiences, but introduced me to many other survivors, and was always ready with thoughtful advice and guidance. For more than a decade, he has encouraged me to seek out, and to set down, the facts of what is, inevitably, a painful story.

Two other survivors to whom I am grateful are Ben Helfgott, who read the book in typescript, and Dr Shmuel Krakowski, who has always been most generous with his time and expert advice, derived from many years of historical research, first in Warsaw and then in Jerusalem. Other survivors who have spoken to me about their experiences, answered my queries, and given me historical material, and to whom I wish to express my most sincere thanks are Maja Abramowicz (now living in Johannesburg), Harry Balsam (London), Raya Barnea (Hadera), Arieh L. Bauminger (Jerusalem), Judge Moshe Bejski (Jerusalem), Leo Bretholz (Baltimore), Reuven Dafni (Jerusalem), Dr Szymon Datner (Warsaw), Jack Eisner (New York), Vera Elyashiv (London), Michael Etkind (London), Rebecca Fink (Ramat Aviv), Violette Fintz (Cape Town), Leslie Frankel (Johannesburg), Solomon Gisser (Montreal), Roman Halter (London), Kitty Hart (Birmingham), Rabbi Harry M. Jacobi (Zurich), Jack Kagan (London), Lilli Kopecky (Ramat Gan), Dr Luba Krugman Gurdus (New York), Erich Kulka (Jerusalem), Naphtali Lavie (New York), Lea Leibowitz (Johannesburg), Don Levin (Jerusalem), Jakub Lichterman (Cape Town), Eric Lucas (Herzliya), Helena Manaster (Haifa), Czeslaw Mordowicz (Tel Aviv), Maria Osovskaya (Beersheba), Alexander Pechersky (Rostov-on-Don), Leon Pommers (New York), Cantor Martin Rosenblum (Toronto), Dana Schwartz (Los Angeles), Helen Shabbes (Allentown), Bertha Shachovskaya (Moscow), Levi Shalit (Johannesburg), Henry Slamovich (San Francisco), Rudolf Vrba (Vancouver), Jaffa and Norris Wallach (Haifa), Harold Werner (Miami), Freda Wineman (London), and Jack Young (London).

A special note of thanks is due to my friends in Moscow and Leningrad, among them Yakov Gorodetsky, Boris Kelman, Vladimir Lembrikov and Aba Taratuta, for providing me with historical material relating to the fate of the Jews on Soviet soil during the years of German occupation. I also received important material from Soviet printed sources from Dr Anatol Khazanov, then of Moscow, now of Jerusalem.

In the course of my researches, many other people have patiently answered my queries, and have sent me documentary material. I should like to thank, in this regard, Ora Alcalay (Head Librarian, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem), Flavio Andreis (Istituto Italiano di Cultura, London), Dr Jean Angel, Dr Yitzhak Arad (Chairman, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem), J. M. Aspden (Library Secretary, the Royal College of Surgeons of England), Baruch Bandet, Arieh Barnea, Professor Yehuda Bauer, Dr Konstantin Bazarov, Solomon Berger, Professor Yehuda Blum, Tom Bower, David Brauner (Jerusalem Post Archives), Teresa Ceglowska (Panstwowe Muzeum w Oswiecimiu), Deena Cohen, Peter Coombs, Francis Cuss, Lonnie Darwin (The Holocaust Library and Research Center, San Francisco), Barbara Distel (KZ-Gedenksttte, Dachau), Dr Lucjan Dobroszycki (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York), Adina Drechsler, Meira Edelstein, Dr Liliana Picciotto Fargion (Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea, Milan), Eitan Finkelstein, Joseph Finkelstone, Clement Freud, Henning Gehrs (Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen), Sam Goldsmith, Whitney Harris, Alfred Herzka, Dr Zygmunt Hoffman (Zydowski Instytut Historyczny w Polsce, Warsaw), Celia Hurst (Archivist, Sigmund Freud Copyrights Ltd), Professor Henry R. Huttenbach, Professor Louis de Jong (Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam), Ida Kadane, Dr Rivka Kauli, Dr Donald Kenrick, Dr J. Kermish, Serge Klarsfeld, Stanislaw Krajewski, Dr Shmuel Krakowski (Archivist, Yad Vashem), Professor Konrad Kwiet, Dr Vera Laska, Naomi Layish, Sinai Leichter, Jack Lennard, Dr M. Lubetzky, Hadassa Modlinger (Custodian of Testimonies, Yad Vashem), Miriam Novitch (Ghetto Fighters House, Kibbutz Lohamei Ha-gettaot), Professor Czeslaw Pilichowski (Glowna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Warsaw), Matthew Rinaldi, Eli M. Rosenbaum (United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC), Rafi Ruppin, Moshe Sakkis, Gustav Schildkraut, Freddie Shaw, Neal M. Sher (United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC), Dr M. R. Sheridan, R. Silbert (Librarian, Jewish Chronicle), Professor Kazimierz Smolen (Panstwowe Muzeum w Oswiecimiu), Dr Shmuel Spector, Rebecca and Edith Spivack, Rabbi Charles W. Steckel, Solomon H. Stekoll, Professor J. P. Stern, Jennie Tarabulus, Ida Taratuta, Mike Tregenza, Major N. P. Uniake (Central Army Records Office, Australian Army, Melbourne), Victor West, Yigal Zafoni, K. Zeilinger (Director, Service Social Juif, Brussels), Dr Ludmila Zeldowicz and Alexander Zvielli (Archivist, Jerusalem Post).

Any book that deals with Jewish resistance must mention the pioneering work by Reuben Ainsztein. It was my privilege to have known him, and to have been able to discuss with him many aspects of his researches.

For their help in translating testimonies, I am grateful to Alexandra Finkelstein, Nan Greifer, Richard Grunberger, Mira Marody, Richard Sakwa, Taffy Sassoon, Michael Sherborne, and the late Halina Willets.

Important suggestions as to form and content were made by Erica Hunningher. The burden of the typing and retyping was borne by Sue Rampton, assisted in the last stages of the work by Helen Gardiner. The photographic prints [for the print edition] were prepared, often from faded or damaged originals, by Zev Radovan, Gerry Moeran and Jean Hunt. The maps were designed specially for this volume by Terry Bicknell.

Particular thanks are due to Professor Yehuda Bauer for his scrutiny of the text in its final stage, and for his many valuable comments and suggestions.

I am also grateful to my publishers, Helen Fraser of Fontana Paperbacks, Philip Ziegler and Carol OBrien of Collins Publishers, and Richard Seaver of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, for their encouragement at every stage of the work.

Special thanks must go my wife Susie, who for many years has helped me to tell the story in all its aspects: the suffering, the heroism, the relentless oppression, the struggle for human dignity andin many ways the most painful of all the tragedies of the Holocaustthe fate of the children. No one can read about those terrible years without being moved, and at times overwhelmed, by the ruthless, diabolical destruction of young life, from the tiniest baby to the teenager on the verge of what ought to have been the years of opportunity and fulfilment.