Holocaust Journey: Traveling in Search of the Past - Softcover

Gilbert, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0231109652 ISBN 13: 9780231109659

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1999

Synopsis

In 1996 Martin Gilbert was asked by a group of his graduate students to lead them on a tour of the places in Europe that were the stage of one of history's greatest human tragedies. The two-week journey that resulted, with England's leading Holocaust and World War II scholar as its guide, culminated in the powerful travel narrative Holocaust Journey. Gilbert skillfully interweaves present-day experiences, personal memories, and historical accounts. More than fifty photographs taken over the course of this unique voyage are included, among them shots of Berlin, at the spot of the 1933 book burning; the railway line to Auschwitz; Oskar Schindler's factory in Crakow, Poland; and memorial stones from Treblinka. Together with fifty-five maps, these illustrations add an arresting visual dimension to this powerful story.

About this title

Review:

Gilbert.... is a dedicated guide to this difficult material. We can be grateful for his thoroughness, courage and guidance.--Los Angeles Times Book Review

A powerfully moving narrative that reveals the deepest thoughts and feelings of 13 travelers during the summer of 1996.... Without overpowering his readers, [Gilbert] juxtaposes the histories of the places visited with descriptions of what they look like today. The overall effect is to make the past live by transferring it to the present, where it can be handled and evaluated anew.--America

The achievement of Gilbert's Holocaust Journey is to reduce to comprehensible, human terms, the scale of genocide that to many is still unimaginable.--Literary Review (UK)

A travelogue, spanning two weeks, of the essential sites of the Holocaust, by the venerable historian and author of many books.... [Gilbert] guides one of his classes on an extraordinary field trip.... He lectures at the most significant sights--of desecrated synagogues, book burnings, and gas chambers.... To these moving testaments Gilbert here adds the voices of his fellow travelers, both Jews and non-Jews, who draw closer as the trip progresses and they relive the terrible history.... The very best book for any Jew, or any human being, planning the same soul-searching trip.--Kirkus Reviews

Book Description:

A diary of a world famous historian and his student group's journey to the key Holocaust sites: their reflections and impressions set against the history and geography of a twentieth-century catastrophe.

About this edition

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0231109652
• ISBN 13: 9780231109659
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288