Further Reading
Bergen, Doris L.,War & Genocide: A Concise History of
the Holocaust, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
As the title of this book makes clear, this short
text provides an easy to read and understand
introduction to the events that occurred
during the period that came to be called the
Holocaust.
Duffy, Peter,The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of
Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Saved 1,200 Jews, and
Built a Village in the Forest, HarperCollins, 2003.
This book is a very readable and true story of
three brothers who hid in the forest while the
Nazis murdered their parents, siblings, and the
rest of the villagers in their small Belorussian
town. The brothers formed a guerilla fighting
unit that successfully waged war against the
Nazis.
Figes, Orlando,The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s
Russia, Metropolitan Books, 2007.
This book presents personal stories of life in a
repressive regime, with almost every family facing
reprisals, the gulag, or forced resettlement during
Stalin’s years as dictator.
Megargee, Geoffrey P.,War of Annihilation: Combat and
Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941, Rowman & Little-
field, 2006.
Megargee provides a concise history of the
German army’s initial campaign as it invaded
the Soviet Union in 1941. Much of the focus
of this book is on the brutality of the Germany
military officers, who historically blamed the
genocide that occurred on the Eastern Front
on the Nazis and not the army.
Wiesenthal, Simon,The Sunflower: On the Possibilities
and Limits of Forgiveness, rev. ed., Schocken Books,
1998.
In the first section of thisbook, Wiesenthal relates
a story of how, as a prisoner of war in a
concentration camp, he was brought in to see a
dying SS officer who asked the prisoner to forgive
him for what had happened to the Jewish people.
In the second part of the book, Wiesenthal asks a
number of well-known intellectuals whether he
should have offered forgiveness to the soldier.Babii Yar