The Holocaust

A New History

By: Laurence Rees

Narrated by: Eric Vale

In June 1944, Freda Wineman and her family arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous Nazi concentration and death camp. After a cursory look from an SS doctor, Freda's life was spared and her mother was sent to the gas chambers. Freda only survived because the Allies won the war - the Nazis ultimately wanted every Jew to die. Her mother was one of millions who lost their lives because of a racist regime that believed that some human beings simply did not deserve to live - not because of what they had done, but because of who they were.

Laurence Rees has spent 25 years meeting the survivors and perpetrators of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. In this sweeping history, he combines this testimony with the latest academic research to investigate how history's greatest crime was possible. Rees argues that while hatred of the Jews was at the epicenter of Nazi thinking, we cannot fully understand the Holocaust without considering Nazi plans to kill millions of non-Jews as well. He also reveals that there was no single overarching blueprint for the Holocaust. Instead, a series of escalations compounded into the horror. Though Hitler was most responsible for what happened, the blame is widespread, Rees reminds us, and the effects are enduring.

The Holocaust: A New History is an accessible yet authoritative account of this terrible crime. A chronological, intensely listenable narrative, this is a compelling exposition of humanity's darkest moment.

©2017 Laurence Rees (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Excellent

It’s true, it really just take 19 hrs to give even just a overview of the nazis and Jews. Not any wasted time in this book, I was a bit worried at first when I saw the length of it. I did read some reviews about the narrator. Either they fixed some pronunciations (from the edits it sounds like it). Or people are just very sensitive about something that matters very little. I thought the narrator was excellent

a great read!

I love this book and all the information FedEx so eloquently laid out. unlike other reviews, I did not have a problem with the voice of the narrator, in fact I quite liked it.

a book well worth your time to listen to.

very moving and fact based well worth the time spent listening to. It makes you remember to not forget history so it won't happen again.

The content of our character is revealed in crises.

Laurence Rees has done us a great service by holding up this mirror to our faces and having us take a good look at ourselves in history. Penetrating, poignant, powerful! “Never again”, we say! Rees lets us know that it will require more than the transient flare of our enthusiasms.

Every book about the Holocaust is important.

This was no new history. Every Holocaust book deserves to be read. The narrative was not so great. Too many mispronounced words was distracting. Still the research is very good and the subject should never be forgotten. Thousands of years from now the Holocaust should still be talked and written about.

Begging for a new narrator

I can only echo other reviewers who have commented on the subpar narration. Please, Hachette, re-record this important book with someone who has some gravitas to their voice and who can pronounce German and Polish. What a disservice to this brilliant book. I’m on the verge of returning it and reading the hard copy. I don’t know if I can stand to hear “Duh-KOW” (Dachau) or “Lots” (Łódź) one more time, not to mention all the other general mangling, mispronunciations, and the narrator’s heavy American accent.

Essential

Great history. Very well done. Essential to learn about the halocaust and see the eventual conclusion of racism, whether it is against the Jews, the Muslims or Chinese

Different narrator imperative

It is imperative that a new narrator re-perform this incredible book. My suggestion is a mature British voice like Paul Hodgeson who narrates Nikolaus Wachsmann’s, KL. The subject of Rees’s book compels a deeper, more round fuller voice that is confident and experienced. Since the book deals with Europe and due to the sophistication of the subject and audience I urge a British voice, and one who will pronounce the names of persons and places correctly.

Excellent

Answered so many questions I had about the Holocaust. Gut wrenching and hard to get through at times because of the barbaric ways of the Nazis, but too important not to.

Outstanding

My education never included European History, so I never formally studied the Holocaust. Being of Ashkenazi descent, I THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK as a child and several times as an adult. I’ve seen SCHINDLER’S LIST at least five times, so I wasn’t completely ignorant on the topic.

Laurence Rees did a fantastic job describing THE HOLOCAUST, including a number of first hand accounts which offered depth to the facts. I appreciated his journalistic approach, avoiding adjectives that were quite obvious considering the horrific atrocities the Nazis perpetrated. His writing, while professional, kept my interest with enough information to educate me without too much detail to bog down the narrative.

THE HOLOCAUST should be required reading for every politician, because I’m pretty sure most don’t know as much as they think they do.