A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of its Survivors

By Michael Berenbaum

Book Overview

A PROMISE TO REMEMBER is a concise and accessible history of the Holocaust presented in an interactive format that includes graphics, detailed sidebars, an audio CD and removable facsimiles of documents from the period. Michael Berenbaum, bestselling author and former director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, provides the powerful narrative. Each chapter addresses a different topic, from the rise of the Nazis to ghettoization, the death camps to liberation. The events are personalised by focusing on the life of someone who was there and survived to tell their story. Many of these same stories appear on the accompanying hour-long CD, allowing us to hear the voices of the survivors as they tell their stories in their own words. Holding the removable documents in their hands and hearing the survivos' voices on the CD, readers will come to better understand a dark chapter in world history. The book's emotional impact and historical depth make it an invaluable tool for both family discussion and one's own understanding of the Holocaust.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0821228285
• ISBN13: 9780821228289
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Bulfinch Press
• Length: 48 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.8" x 11.6"

Customer Reviews

Effective Primary Source

I am a teacher. I have used this book as a way to connect my students to the Holocaust and to create a personal connection to the affected people during the Holocaust. Great book. Easy read. Be ready to cry. It even has letters and documents inside.

"This sin will haunt humanity to the end of time"

Of the various books,documentries,movies newsreels,etc that I have seen about the Holocast,this book and CD have been the most profound to me.For such a horrible atrocity to happen "unbeknownst to the world" was demomstrated when the Polish courier got a chanch to tell the US via Justice Felix Frankfurter (a Jew)about what was happening to the Jews in Europe.He said he was "unable to believe what he told me." The Ambassador questioned Frankfurter,"Felix,you don't mean it.You cannot tell to him that he is lying.Frankfurter replied,"Mr.Ambassador,I did not say that this man was lying,I said that I am unable to believe what he told me.There is a difference." The real horror of the Holocast is demonstrated in the very words of some people who actually witnessed and survived the Holocast;few though they may be. "What am I supposed to be thankful for?That you didn't kill us?" "The most severe of all the punishments we received is that we did not die." In the words of Edward R. Morrow,after his visit to Buchanwald on12 Apr 1945, "If you are at lunch or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done,now is a good time to switch off the radio;for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald..."He beseeched his audience,"I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald.I have reported what I saw and heard,but only part of it;for most of it I have no words..." As the world continues to be subjected to similar atrocities,many directed against freedoms proposed by the United States with its coalition to fight Evil and Terror,it would be well to remember the words of Fred Friendly. "For if there had been no America,we,all of us,might well have carried granite at Mauthausen." While not a large book,it tells the story of the Holocast and learned that "Kosovo was bombed,in part,because Auchwitz was not." "History is the realm of human responsibility.The killers are responsible for their deeds.Not God." Where would Europe be today were it not for America;and where are now they in the fight against Evil and Terror? A brief,though excellent study of the Holocast.

Unusual Book/CD - deeply moving

I found this book extremely powerful. The history is told in clear language that does not condescend but is very readable. The interactive elements and the audio CD were fascinating - I wasn't sure they would seem fitting in a book on the Holocaust but in fact they add another level of understanding and meaning to the book. The survivors' stories and the facsimile documents are so moving. Berenbaum does a great job of relating the story and filling in lesser-known details and personal histories that I never knew about. I would recommend for a teenager or an adult interested in learning about the Holocaust.