War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Critical Issues in World and International History)

In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical political social cultural and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust this revised third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma homosexuals Poles Soviet POWs the disabled and other groups deemed undesirable. In clear and eloquent prose Bergen explores the two interconnected goals that drove the Nazi German program of conquest and genocidepurification of the so-called Aryan race and expansion of its living spaceand discusses how these goals affected the course of World War II. Including firsthand accounts from perpetrators victims and eyewitnesses her book is immediate human and eminently readable.