The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees is a readable
and well-researched book about the Shoah.
I am not entirely sure in what ways it is “new.” Rees weaves personal
stories from many players in the drama of the Shoah along with the wider look at the history. He claims this is new, but I’m
not so sure. In the end it hardly
matters.
This book plots the course of the destruction of
the Jews of Europe with great accuracy and care. The author shows how and why the extermination of Europe’s
Jews was easier in some countries than others, and how much of the murders and their methods were guided by individual Nazi commander’s discretion.
The murder of Europe's Jews was certainly a centralized operation, but it also had the flexibility of decentralization. Rees explains this important, and little know point, well.
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