The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders

The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders | Hard read. Well written/researched.

books:

The Good Old Days:...

	The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders William S. Konecky Associates, 1996 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

The title "The Good Old Days" ("Schone Zeiten" in German) comes from the cover of a private photo album kept by concentration camp commandant Kurt Franz of Treblinka. This gruesomely sentimental and unmistakably authentic title introduces an disturbing collection of photographs, diaries, letters home, and confidential reports created by the executioners and sympathetic observers of the Holocaust. "The Good Old Days" reveals startling new evidence of the inhumanity of recent twentieth century history and is published now as yet another irrefutable response to the revisionist historians who claim to doubt the historic truth of the Holocaust.

for more information click here

Revealing

This book removes the mask from those who deny the horror and terror of the Holocaust. An engrossing work that strikes the sensibilities of its readers. The records, letters, and photos, all forbidden, but taken with pride to show their loved ones how much they enjoyed/hated/performed their sinister tasks, leaving behind mass graves for us to find.

Hard read. Well written/researched.

When Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "banality of evil," she was writing about Eichmann.But after reading this compilation of personal stories,she could have been writing about anyone and everyone who bowed to worship hitler,and blithely went on about their lives,pre-war,when they knew full well what hitler and his monstrous henchmen and women were doing.
This is a hard read because it is infuriating.They knew what they were doing and didn't give a damn.True,there were observers who were initially shocked by the torture and murders they were seeing,but they just went away quietly,and did nothing to broadcast what was happening in Germany during the time the persecutions of the Jews was just beginning on a large scale.Pogroms were the forerunner of mass murder.
Reading this made me sick,but I felt I owed it to the legions of the dead and suffering.
There really isn't much else to say about this book. It is meticulously researched and presented in a straight-forward manner.Neither of which makes it any easier to read.But read it. It needs to be read,and you will be stronger for it.

for more information click here

A Difficult Read, But Necessary to Understand the Holocaust

The most jarring aspect of this book is the casual, flippant remarks that are made about mass-extermination. Some of the German quotes in this book were taken from diaries and letters to loved ones, and much of it is casual. There is a convenient language spoken. For instance, few people say that they were "killing Jews." The most common phrase was, "special actions."

There are dry reports of incidents written by SS men that could be interchanged with a unemotional report of wheat production on any farm. Only, these reports are about numbers of Jews murdered, or bodies liquidated.

It is the casual nature of these comments that makes this book so surprising. It's all so "matter-of-fact." It's all so horrifyingly mundane.

I bought this as a compliment to other books I own about the Holocaust, and few books have matched the surreality of the Nazi "Final Solution" than this book. It is highly recommended, but only for those who want to see the atrocities described from the cold, heartless eyes of the Nazi murderers themselves.

for more information click here

Yes, evil IS banal.

To truly appreciate how ordinary people could commit such evil acts as were committed in the Holoucast, we would do well to remember that none of those who tortured and murdered in the concentration camps were any different than you or I.
They had families. They managed to reduce the importance of their victims as human beings.
There is a parallel between what happened in Nazi concentration camps and what is happening now to innocent people incarcerated and dehumanized in Iraq and elsewhere.
As someone once said, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

for more information click here

a dificult read

This book is depressing and very difficult to read for very long. The benefit of the book is to get a first hand glimpse of the atrocities committed by those following Hitler in WWII. It outlines how savage people can become in their feelings toward a religion.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

products you might be interested in