Daniel Blatman is Max and Rita Haber Professor of Contemporary Jewry at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Blatman’s book is to be welcomed, not least as the subject of the death marches has rarely featured in the long historiography of the Third Reich. He sets out not only to explain and contextualise, but also to correct a few misconceptions… The Death Marches is an excellent history. Blatman has researched assiduously, using trial records and survivor testimonies. He presents his research in a very accessible way. He is scrupulously even-handed, giving due credit to those Polish, Czech and German civilians who gave succour to the unfortunates, as well as highlighting the actions of those who did not. In particular Blatman deserves praise for providing a highly nuanced interpretation of events: one that avoids the assumption that the death marches simply constituted the final stage of the Holocaust. The gruesome chapter that he outlines was clearly in large part the result of the mentality and the practices that had brought about the genocide against the Jews. Yet by 1945 the murders surrounding the death marches formed part of a much wider phenomenon—no less brutal and scarcely less exterminatory—but one in which Jews were no longer the primary victims.

Daniel Blatman is Max and Rita Haber Professor of Contemporary Jewry at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Blatman’s book is to be welcomed, not least as the subject of the death marches has rarely featured in the long historiography of the Third Reich. He sets out not only to explain and contextualise, but also to correct a few misconceptions… The Death Marches is an excellent history. Blatman has researched assiduously, using trial records and survivor testimonies. He presents his research in a very accessible way. He is scrupulously even-handed, giving due credit to those Polish, Czech and German civilians who gave succour to the unfortunates, as well as highlighting the actions of those who did not. In particular Blatman deserves praise for providing a highly nuanced interpretation of events: one that avoids the assumption that the death marches simply constituted the final stage of the Holocaust. The gruesome chapter that he outlines was clearly in large part the result of the mentality and the practices that had brought about the genocide against the Jews. Yet by 1945 the murders surrounding the death marches formed part of a much wider phenomenon—no less brutal and scarcely less exterminatory—but one in which Jews were no longer the primary victims.

Daniel Blatman is Max and Rita Haber Professor of Contemporary Jewry at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Blatman’s book is to be welcomed, not least as the subject of the death marches has rarely featured in the long historiography of the Third Reich. He sets out not only to explain and contextualise, but also to correct a few misconceptions… The Death Marches is an excellent history. Blatman has researched assiduously, using trial records and survivor testimonies. He presents his research in a very accessible way. He is scrupulously even-handed, giving due credit to those Polish, Czech and German civilians who gave succour to the unfortunates, as well as highlighting the actions of those who did not. In particular Blatman deserves praise for providing a highly nuanced interpretation of events: one that avoids the assumption that the death marches simply constituted the final stage of the Holocaust. The gruesome chapter that he outlines was clearly in large part the result of the mentality and the practices that had brought about the genocide against the Jews. Yet by 1945 the murders surrounding the death marches formed part of a much wider phenomenon—no less brutal and scarcely less exterminatory—but one in which Jews were no longer the primary victims.