Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka : the Operation Reinhard death camps /

Arad, a Holocaust scholar, has written the first full-scale study of the three death camps that were created to carry out Operation Reinhard-the killing of the Jews who lived in the General Government of Poland. Based on an exhaustive review of the sources, Arad paints a vivid picture of the sequence of actions needed to complete the objective. The sequence involved coordination of different bureaucracies, construction of the camps, expulsions from the ghettos of Poland (and elsewhere), the ``trains of death,'' the deceptiveness and efficiency of the killing process from the moment of first arrival until the corpses were removed from the gas chambers, and, finally, the unsuccessful efforts to erase the crime. Arad judiciously uses extended quotes from the testimonies of SS personnel, bystanders, and survivors to recreate ``the extermination machine'' and ``life in the shadow of death.'' The most gripping chapters are devoted to the various attempts to escape or resist, particularly the organized uprisings in Treblinka and Sobibor. There are informative maps of each camp, photos, and appendixes. Highly recommended for all audiences.-K.P. Jones, University of Tennessee at Martin

Arad, whose parents died at Treblinka, is a historian and chairman of the Yad Vashem museum in Israel. Between 1942 and 1943, under code name Operation Reinhard, 1.7 million Jews were gassed to death in three concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Drawing on testimony of camp survivors, official documents, underground sources, and the text of proceedings at Nazi war crime trials, Arad chronicles the camps' revolts and escapes, underground organizations, and the lives of those inmates who were not gassed on arrival. A front-rank volume of Holocaust history, offering readers both an effective overview and a personal account of hell on Earth. Notes; index. GC. 940.54'72 Belzec (Poland: Concentration camp) / Sobibor (Poland: Concentration camp) / Treblinka (Poland: Concentration camp) / World War, 1939-1945 Prisoners and prisons, German / Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) [CIP] 85-45883

With meticulous scholarship and precise exposition Tel Aviv historian and Yad Vashem director Arad recounts all facets of Operation Reinhard, the destruction of 1.5 million Jews in occupied Poland from 1941 to 1943. Arad describes the founding, organization, personnel, prisoners, and victims of the three death camps and provides detailed chapters on the uprisings and escapes from Treblinka and Sobibor. He effectively employs extensive excerpts from Jewish, Polish, and German contemporary documents and later testimony by witnesses and participants. Arad is scrupulously careful to point out the limits of the available evidence. This comprehensive, judicious, and moving history is a remarkable contribution to Holocaust studies and is strongly recommended for academic and public libraries. James B. Street, Santa Cruz P.L., Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.