The Holocaust: History and Memory

In The Holocaust: History and Memory, New Edition, Jeremy Black revisits his brilliant and wrenching account of the brutal mass slaughter of Jews during World War II and the subsequent remembrance and misremembering of this genocide.

Black challenges the prevailing view that separates the Holocaust from Germany’s military objectives with compelling evidence that Germany’s war on the Allies was deeply intertwined with Hitler’s war on Jews. As Hitler expanded his control over more territories, the extermination of Jews became a significant war aim, particularly in the east. Long before the establishment of extermination camps, the German army and collaborators carried out mass shootings, resulting in the deaths of many and the extermination of entire Jewish communities. Notably, Rommel’s attack on Egypt was a crucial step toward the larger goal of annihilating 400,000 Jews living in Palestine. Additionally, Hitler interpreted America’s initial focus on war with Germany, rather than Japan, as evidence of influential Jewish interests in American policy, which further justified and escalated his war against Jewry through the Final Solution. In chilling detail, Black also unveils compelling evidence that many ordinary Germans must have been aware of the genocide happening around them.

The Holocaust: History and Memory, New Edition is an essential, concise, and highly readable history. Now extensively revised and updated, it continues to offer a powerful testimony to those forever silenced by the Holocaust, ensuring that their horrifying fate will never be forgotten.

Jeremy Black is a pre-eminent historian, and the author of numerous books, including A Brief History of History; Tank Warfare; and Charting the Past: The Historical Worlds of Eighteenth-Century England. He is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a Senior Fellow both of Policy Exchange and of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Black is a recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize from the Society for Military History. Follow Black on his website, jeremyblackhistorian.wordpress.com.