Publisher's Synopsis
In this remarkable personal history of the Third Reich, 3,000 Germans and 500 German Jews tell of their everyday experiences of life under the Nazis. They describe their brushes with the Gestapo and what they knew at the time about the mass murder of Jews. What they say is horrifying, moving, and - even at this distance from the war - often surprising.
Jews, many of them now in America, speak of their journeys by train to Auschwitz and elsewhere, the harassment they suffered in Nazi Germany, and sometimes of the support and friendship of ordinary German neighbours. Many ordinary Germans speak with remarkable openness too. One, for instance, was a reserve policeman who served as a concentration camp guard in Dachau, and later took part in shooting 300 Jewish women and children.
About half admit to knowing about the murder of Jews before the end of WW2 and, even now, many confess that they admired Hitler and believed in the Nazi movement. It is essential that the reasons for such support are understood and remembered.
