The Years of Extermination

With the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Years of Extermination, Saul Friedländer completes a masterful historical work that began with Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume I: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939. Drawing from a vast array of historical documents, diaries, letters, and memoirs, Friedländer gives voice to the victims, the Nazis, and witnesses of these horrific events. In this work, the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.

The Years of Extermination examines the persecution and murder of Jewish people throughout occupied Europe, placing the Holocaust in a historic, political and social context. Friedländer recounts the ways in which Germany’s extermination policies were implemented, with the cooperation of local authorities and police forces, as well as the passivity or fear of local citizens. The reaction of foreign countries to the ongoing Holocaust is also considered in this unforgettable exploration of one of humanity’s darkest hours.

Born in Prague, Saul Friedländer spent his boyhood in Nazi-occupied France. He is a professor of history at UCLA, and has written numerous books on Nazi Germany and World War II. In 2008, Friedländer won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for the second volume of his influential work The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.

Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Europe’s Jews ... An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel ... Friedländer succeeds in binding together the many different strands of his story with a sure touch. He has written a masterpiece that will endure. — New York Times Book Review