Ray Brandon

This is most definitely an academic rather than a popular book, and I doubt it would much interest people outside an academic setting. I am an academic sort of person, but not enrolled at or teaching at a university, and I did not find it as easy to read as many Holocaust books.

It is, however, a excellent work of history. Each article is carefully researched and there are extensive footnotes and source documentation. The book doesn't have to be read front to back, and you don't even necessarily have to read all the articles, as they aren't connected to one another. Obviously, all of them discuss some aspect of the Holocaust in Ukraine, but the content varies -- some articles talk about broad topics like the history of Jewish settlement and antisemitism in Ukraine, and others focus narrowly on things like the building of a specific highway using Jewish forced labor. Only the last article has what I would call a literary quality.

I would recommend this for university libraries and as a college course textbook.… (mehr)