Description: Volume II begins with Kristallnacht in 1938 and continues through Jewish flight out of Germany, the onset of World War II, the forced relocation of the Jews of Europe to the East, and the formation of Jewish ghettos, particularly in Poland.
Review Quotes:
"This impressive series provides a sense of the depth and diversity of contemporary Jewish documents while embedding them in explanatory narratives. . . . Documents in Volume II focus on broad questions of daily life and explore their social, economic, cultural, and religious aspects during the critical period between late 1938 and the end of 1940. . . . Even as [the editors] emphasize that the Jewish history of these years is best studied as transnational history, the 'geographic heart' of their volume rests explicitly in Poland. As the editors assert, on the one hand this simply reflects their reading of contemporary sources, which tend recurrently to draw attention to the plight of Polish Jewry. On the other, this emphasis is also meant to stress -- as did contemporary commentators -- how 'unprecedented' the nature of Nazi actions in Poland was even prior to the launching of comprehensive genocide." --Yad Vashem Studies
"This second volume of the series, Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1933-1946, that covers the period 1938 to 1940, will be of immense importance both to historians and to general readers alike. As in the preceding volume, the Jewish victims' reactions to the rapidly expanding Nazi onslaught are contextualized in an exemplary presentation: an admirable addition to an essential initiative." --Saul Friedländer, University of California at Los Angeles "This is an excellent piece of work. It presents a far more varied and complex picture of Jewish responses during the period in question than is available from any existing documentary anthology or textbook. The authors are to be congratulated." --David Engel, New York University "An outstanding book. The combination of documents and integrating narrative makes for a riveting read as well as a crucial teaching text. The chapters offer a kaleidoscope of views, sensitively contextualized, on a key period in the history of the Holocaust." --Mark Roseman, Indiana University at Bloomington