Jews in Nazi Berlin

Though many of the details of Jewish life under Hitler are familiar, historical accounts rarely afford us a real sense of what it was like for Jews and their families to live in the shadow of Nazi Germany's oppressive racial laws and growing violence. WithJews in Nazi Berlin, those individual livesand the constant struggle they requiredcome fully into focus, and the result is an unprecedented and deeply moving portrait of a people. Drawing on a remarkably rich archive that includes photographs, objects, official documents, and personal papers, the editors ofJews in Nazi Berlinhave assembled a multifaceted picture of Jewish daily life in the Nazi capital during the height of the regime's power. The book's essays and images are divided into thematic sections, each representing a different aspect of the experience of Jews in Berlin, covering such topics as emigration, the yellow star, Zionism, deportation, betrayal, survival, and more. To supplementand, importantly, to humanizethe comprehensive documentary evidence, the editors draw on an extensive series of interviews with survivors of the Nazi persecution, who present gripping first-person accounts of the innovation, subterfuge, resilience, and luck required to negotiate the increasing brutality of the regime. A stunning reconstruction of a storied community as it faced destruction,Jews in Nazi Berlinrenders that loss with a startling immediacy that will make it an essential part of our continuing attempts to understand World War II and the Holocaust.

Beate Meyer is a researcher at the Institute for the History of German Jews in Hamburg. Hermann Simon is the director of the New Synagogue Berlin–Centrum Judaicum Foundation. Chana Schütz is research associate at and vice-director of the New Synagogue Berlin–Centrum Judaicum Foundation.