Synopses & Reviews
Seventy years have passed since the tortured inmates of Hitlerandrsquo;s concentration and extermination camps were liberated. When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months, and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives.
and#160;
Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivorsandmdash;their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American, Canadian, and Russian liberators as they contended with survivorsandrsquo; immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.
Review
andlsquo;The real power of Stoneandrsquo;s history lies in a sense in of indomitable vigour and self-beliefandhellip; Stone does a good job of showing how even as nations declared peace, individuals and families still had to fight on desperately.andrsquo;andmdash;Sinclair Mckay, the Daily Telegraph.andnbsp;
Review
and#39;...a thoughtful, sensitive and well-researched treatment of an important and rarely covered subject.and#39;andmdash;Rodger Moorhouse, BBC History Magazine.
Review
andquot;[An] engrossing and illuminating bookandmdash;the first full and comparative study of the subject.andquot;andmdash;Richard J. Evans, New York Review of Books
Synopsis
A moving, deeply researched account of survivorsandrsquo; experiences of liberation from Nazi death camps and the long, difficult years that followed
Synopsis
A moving, deeply researched account of survivors' experiences of liberation from Nazi death camps and the long, difficult years that followed
Seventy years have passed since the tortured inmates of Hitler's concentration and extermination camps were liberated. When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months, and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives.
Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivors--their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American, Canadian, and Russian liberators as they contended with survivors' immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.
About the Author
Dan Stone is professor of modern history, Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published fifteen books on the Holocaust, genocide, and twentieth-century European history, including most recently Goodbye to All That? The Story of Europe Since 1945. He lives in London.