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I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 (Modern Library Paperbacks) | 
| Author: Victor Klemperer
Publisher: Modern Library
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 178325
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0375753788
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.086092
EAN: 9780375753787
ASIN: 0375753788
Publication Date: November 15, 1999
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Amazon.com Review
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), honored as a frontline veteran of World War I, was a distinguished professor at the University of Dresden. A scant few months later he was merely a Jew, protected from deportation to a death camp only by his marriage to an Aryan. He suffered every other indignity to which German Jews were subjected, from losing his job to having his driver's license revoked to being denied permission to own a pet, and all are recorded with bitter clarity in his diary entries, which cover the years 1933 to 1941. (A second volume continuing through 1945 will be published in English in 1999.) The German edition of this book caused a sensation when it was published in 1995, and it's easy to see why: the relentless, quotidian nature of Nazi racism comes through forcefully in Klemperer's litany of daily humiliations and insults, a painful chronicle of situations in which readers can readily imagine themselves. Like Anne Frank, but with a more adult understanding of political fanaticism and human weakness, he makes the abstract horror of genocidal persecution very intimate, very personal, and very real. --Wendy Smith
Product Description
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 bestwritten, 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 oftyranny, which may be forgotten. A thousand mosquito bites are worse than a blow on the head. I observe, I note, the mosquito bites."
This book covers the years from 1933 to 1941. Volume Two, from 1941to 1945, will be published in 1999.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
Heartbreaking and essential book July 6, 2008
A must read for all those who are compelled to understand the insanity of Nazi Germany. The evil is in the details as these journals so devastatingly reveal. Sometimes necessary to read only a few pages at a time as the devastation and slowly increasing helplessness of this man's life is revealed. A critical historical document.
Bearing Witness as a Jew in Nazi Germany June 22, 2008
As an educated Professor of Philology, Victor Klemperer documents life as a Jew in Nazi Germany. The very act of keeping this diary was grounds for his demise.
The essence of these incredible documents, is that it records the tightening of control of the Jewish people under Nazism. The progressive pogroms took away simple things such as going to a movie or taking a ride on a tram. The taking of one's own home and living in a communal Jewish home further degraded the Jewish people. The simple fact that each had to wear the yellow star which indeed put all Jews into harms way.
Mr Klemperer was forced out of his professorship because he was a Jew. Even though he was an honorable World War I Veteran, he was forced to live on a half pension.
The only thing that saved Victor Klemperer was his Aryan wife Eva. She never abandoned Victor as I'm sure other wives in similar circumstances did. Looking at this, I think is an incredible act of love by Eva. Her subjucation to Nazi Life living with a Jew for 12 years was indeed a severe prison term.
The diaries are edited to delete repetition. However several things are constantly repeated. Victor was always at death's door with an ailing heart. The other repetition was he and his wife's constant physical hunger.
This set of diaries should be required reading for anyone who is a serious student of 20th century history.
Who can doubt it? May 5, 2008
When my son told me a student said the Holocaust was much less gruesome than reported and was exagerated by people over the years, we started to read this together... Not that he needed to be reminded, but how incredible that even today some are still floating this insane rumor!
A must read memoir July 8, 2007
This is a great memoir that any history buff or historian or anyone should read. It ranks right up there with Anne Frank's diary. It offers a unique view since Mr. Klemperer was married to a German woman during the Holocaust. It is this unique view on the Holocaust that makes this memoir so good.
Fascinating Account of pre-WWII life in Germany February 1, 2007
Victor Klemperer's diary of pre war Germany provides fascinating insight into what life was like for ordinary citizens in Germany. Interspersed with the mundane aspects of life, e.g., shopping, driving, going to the dentist, etc. are ever increasing examples of the insanity that was Nazi Germany. It was a little difficult to get into, but it soon became a page tuner. The later years are particularly interesting. I couldn't put it down.
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