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One of the great testimonies of our century. . . . Klemperer's ability to grasp moods and attitudes has a truly Dickensian quality. --Los Angeles Times. What has been called one of the most remarkable documents to come out of the Second World War turns out to be one of the most compulsively readable books of the year. The San Diego Union Tribune. For the next generation of historians, Klemperer's diaries will be required reading.--Gordon Craig, The New York Review of Books. To read his almost day-by-day account is a hypnotic experience; the whole, hard to put down, is a true murder mystery--from the perspective of the victim. --Peter Gay, The New York Times Book Review
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Since 1917 The Modern Library prides itself as The modern Library of the world s Best Books . Its paperback series feature treasured classics, major translations of great works, and rediscoveries of keen literary and historical merit. Featuring introductions by leading writers, stunning translations, scholarly endnotes and reading group guides. Production values emphasize superior quality and readability. Competitive prices, coupled with exciting cover design make these an ideal gift to be cherished by the avid reader. The publication of Victor Klemperer's secret diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. In its cool, lucid style and power of observation, said The New York Times, it is the best written, most evocative, most observant record of daily life in the Third Reich. I Will Bear Witness is a work of literature as well as a revelation of the day-by-day horror of the Nazi years. A Dresden Jew, a veteran of World War I, a man of letters and historian of great sophistication, Klemperer recognized the danger of Hitler as early as 1933. His diaries, written in secrecy, provide a vivid account of everyday life in Hitler's Germany. What makes this book so remarkable, aside from its literary distinction, is Klemperer's preoccupation with the thoughts and actions of ordinary Germans: Berger the greengrocer, who was given Klemperer's house (anti-Hitlerist, but of course pleased at the good exchange), the fishmonger, the baker, the much-visited dentist. All offer their thoughts and theories on the progress of the war: Will England hold out? Who listens to Goebbels? How much longer will it last? This symphony of voices is ordered by the brilliant, grumbling Klemperer, struggling to complete his work on eighteenth-century France while documenting the ever- tightening Nazi grip. He loses first his professorship and then his car, his phone, his house, even his typewriter, and is forced to move into a Jews' House (the last step before the camps), put his cat to death (Jews may not own pets), and suffer countless other indignities. Despite the danger his diaries would pose if discovered, Klemperer sees it as his duty to record events. I continue to write, he notes in 1941 after a terrifying run-in with the police. This is my heroics. I want to bear witness, precise witness, until the very end. When a neighbor remarks that, in his isolation, Klemperer will not be able to cover the main events of the war, he writes: It's not the big things that are important, but the everyday life of tyranny, which may be forgotten. A thousand mosquito bites are worse than a blow on the head. I observe, I note, the mosquito bites.
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Rectoral election. After a great deal of plotting and scheming Reuther was elected for the second time and Gehrig was defeated. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Rectoral election. After a great deal of plotting and scheming Reuther was elected for the second time and Gehrig was defeated. Read the first page
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The astonishing Diaries of Victor Klemperer, written in Dresden almost every day during the 12 years of Nazism, are a monument to survival and the triumph of the human spirit, and Klemperer risked his life in writing them.
They are completely enthralling, and as you read, you quickly find yourself right 'there', in Germany, in Dresden, in that house, experiencing the daily-increasing shocks and trials that a tyrannical regime is imposing on its citizens, particularly the Jews, during those years. This is the real thing.
In addition these Diaries are a wonderful portrait of human beings under extreme pressure: the reader gets to know Victor, his foibles and bravery, his stressed wife Eva, his exasperating neighbours in the same house, his friends and acquaintances who are, one and all, falling victim to the demands of the regime and of war.
Here are gripping descriptions of nerve-wracking house-searches by the Gestapo; the daily trecks for food; the confiscation of their property and even their cat by anti-semitic law; the dreadful experience of imprisonment and the terror of deportation; and a stunning picture of the fire-storm destruction of Dresden.
Don't miss these essential, incomparable Diaries, which are amongst the most unforgettable human documents of the 20th Century.
They are completely enthralling, and as you read, you quickly find yourself right 'there', in Germany, in Dresden, in that house, experiencing the daily-increasing shocks and trials that a tyrannical regime is imposing on its citizens, particularly the Jews, during those years. This is the real thing.
In addition these Diaries are a wonderful portrait of human beings under extreme pressure: the reader gets to know Victor, his foibles and bravery, his stressed wife Eva, his exasperating neighbours in the same house, his friends and acquaintances who are, one and all, falling victim to the demands of the regime and of war.
Here are gripping descriptions of nerve-wracking house-searches by the Gestapo; the daily trecks for food; the confiscation of their property and even their cat by anti-semitic law; the dreadful experience of imprisonment and the terror of deportation; and a stunning picture of the fire-storm destruction of Dresden.
Don't miss these essential, incomparable Diaries, which are amongst the most unforgettable human documents of the 20th Century.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the first of three volumes of diaries of life in Germany from 1933 to the 1950s covering the Hitlerite tyranny. Victor Klemperer was a Jewish-Christian convert who married an Aryan wife and had served as a Front-soldier. The latter two facts helped him survive the war in Dresden, though it was a close call even then. The day to day detail he records has an intense drama, though it must have been tedious and very stressful to live through. In 1933, he loses his job as a professor, then he is forbidden to use the library and public transport and eventually he and his wife lose their house. You feel like you are living through the times day to day. To take one story, if he cannot find evidence of his military service his job, then his life, are at stake. It is the string of such little insect stings that tell the story, as he says. The author later wrote a book on The Language of the Third Reich, noting its use of boxing metaphors and such like, but it is this account that tells us the most about his era in Germany and the range of responses of ordinary people to the ideologies and events of the day. To anyone interested in this era, I can't recommend this book and its companion volumes highly enough.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
While the daily routine of someone else' daily life can start getting monotonous in an ongoing personal diary, the repetitiveness of these diaries is worth working through.
We are mostly used to looking at Word War 2 and its build-up from a military/political perspective. These diaries show us daily life in Nazi Germany, told by a Jew who lived through those years.
The daily gradual erosion of freedoms, and the daily additions of orders which increasingly made life unbearable for those Hitler wanted to eliminate, are an essential read at a time when government seems to be eroding our liberties in the name of protecting liberty. We need to defend freedom of speech passionately, before we are only allowed to say what the government approves of.
We are mostly used to looking at Word War 2 and its build-up from a military/political perspective. These diaries show us daily life in Nazi Germany, told by a Jew who lived through those years.
The daily gradual erosion of freedoms, and the daily additions of orders which increasingly made life unbearable for those Hitler wanted to eliminate, are an essential read at a time when government seems to be eroding our liberties in the name of protecting liberty. We need to defend freedom of speech passionately, before we are only allowed to say what the government approves of.
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