Most people are unaware of the full extent of the Nazi camp and ghetto system. Behind the well-known names, such as Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, and Warsaw, there was a vast universe of facilities, more than 42,000 of them, that formed the heart of the Nazi regime.
Published by Indiana University Press in association with the Museum, this encyclopedia will provide both scholars and a broader audience with a fundamental reference work on the history of the camps and ghettos and facilitate further research in the field.
Each of the seven volumes will address a group of sites according to type or subordination so that each volume can stand on its own. In this way, the reader can gain some appreciation for the conditions at a particular site as well as for the way in which the system functioned as a whole. Photographs, charts, and maps will supplement the text.
Volumes I and II Available Now
Volume I: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)
Geoffrey P. Megargee, General Editor
Foreword by Elie Wiesel
This volume contains entries on 110 early camps, 23 main SS concentration camps (including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau), 898 subcamps, 39 SS construction brigade camps, and three so-called youth protection camps. Introductory essays provide broader context, while citations and source narratives offer the basis for additional research.
Volume I has received the 2009 National Jewish Book Award, the 2010 Judaica Reference Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries, and Library Journal’s Best of Reference 2009. It was also designated a Choice magazine 2010 Outstanding Academic Title.
1,796 pp., 192 b&w illustrations, 23 maps
Hardback (two individual books) 978-0-253-35328-3
$295.00
Purchase here.
Volume II: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe
Geoffrey P. Megargee, General Editor
Martin Dean, Volume Editor
Introduction by Christopher R. Browning
This volume provides a comprehensive account of how the Nazis conducted the Holocaust throughout the scattered towns and villages of Poland and the Soviet Union. It covers more than 1,150 sites, including both open and closed ghettos. Regional essays outline the patterns of ghettoization in 19 German administrative regions. Each entry discusses key events in the history of the ghetto; living and working conditions; activities of the Jewish Councils; Jewish responses to persecution; demographic changes; and details of the ghetto's liquidation. Personal testimonies help convey the character of each ghetto, while source citations provide a guide to additional information. Documentation of hundreds of smaller sites—previously unknown or overlooked in the historiography of the Holocaust—make this an indispensable reference work on the destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe.
“This magnificent collective effort, uniting the research and expertise of leading scholars from around the world, provides a fundamental new reference for the history of the Holocaust. Anyone who wishes to understand the variety of Jewish experience in the ghettos and the scale of the destruction of a whole European world must consult this encyclopedia.”
—Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands
2,096 pp., 192 b&w illus., 20 maps
Cloth 978-0-253-35599-7
$295.00
Purchase here.
