The Years of Extermination

Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945

by Saul Friedlander

On Sale: 04/01/2008

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The Years of Extermination

Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945

by Saul Friedlander

On Sale: 04/01/2008

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About the Book

"Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Europe’s Jews. . . . An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel. . . . A masterpiece that will endure." — New York Times Book Review

The Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedländer's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of the Holocaust, the most systematic and sustained of modern genocides.

The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise.

In this unparalleled work—based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs—the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.

Critical Praise

“One of the most important works of historical writing in recent years, and deserves to live in the company of works by Raul Hilberg, Lucy Dawidowicz, and Leni Yahil as one of the finest comprehensive studies of this darkest subject of all.” — New Republic

"Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Europe’s Jews. . An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel. . . . A masterpiece that will endure." — New York Times Book Review

“Saul Friedlander’s massive history of the Holocaust is a judicious, authoritative and restrained study. But it’s also a stark reminder that lunacy may have been as much a part of Nazism as cruelty.” — Newsweek

"A masterful synthesis that draws on a lifetime of learning and research." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“In this second compelling volume of Friedländer’s history of the Holocaust (see its predecessor, Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939), the author takes into account recent scholarship on the Holocaust but avoids bogging down in the intentionalist/functionalist historiographic debate.” — Library Journal

“The second volume, like the first, lends the impression that ‘you are there,’ a witness with a kaleidoscopic panorama of history that juxtaposes the cries and whispers of ordinary men, women and children against the sadistic bombast of Hitler, his henchmen and their many helpers eager to indulge villainous appetites and vicious prejudices. These stories are woven together in a tapestry that comes to life (and death) by the vivid recall of eyewitnesses to what they otherwise could not have believed.” — Washington Times

“THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945 by Saul Friedlander is a follow-up to his early work… which together provide a remarkable comprehensive history.” — Jewish Week

“Friedlander’s book offers a useful, updated panorama of the events of the Holocaust.” — Washington Post Book World

"A monumental triumph. . . . I have no hesitation in ranking Friedlander’s two volumes as among the very best that we have so far." — Matt Nesvisky, Jerusalem Report