Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg

The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933–1945

In collaboration with: Yad Vashem
Edited by: German Federal Archives, Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) and the Modern History Research Group at the University of Freiburg

Editorial and International Advisory Board: Nomi Halpern, Elizabeth Harvey, Susanne Heim, Ulrich Herbert, Michael Hollmann, Ingo Loose, Dan Michman, Dieter Pohl, Sybille Steinbacher, Alan E. Steinweis, Nikolaus Wachsmann, Simone Walther-von Jena, and Andreas Wirsching. English-language edition prepared by: Elizabeth Harvey, Russell Alt-Haaker, Johannes Gamm, Georg Felix Harsch, Dorothy Mas, and Caroline Pearce

Overview
Volumes

This landmark collection of primary sources provides unique first-hand insights into the persecution and murder of the Jews of Europe under Nazi rule. The documents, all translated from the language of the original source, range from the police orders and administrative decrees issued by the Nazi apparatus across Germany and occupied Europe to the diaries and letters of Jewish men, women, and children facing discrimination, impoverishment, violent assaults, incarceration, deportation, and death. The observations and reactions of bystanders not directly involved in the crimes – some shocked, some indifferent, some approving - also come across vividly. Substantial introductions, scholarly footnotes, and an extensive thematic index help guide the reader through the rich documentary material and add to the value of the series as a resource for teaching and learning about the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Series edited on behalf of the German Federal Archives, the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, and the Modern History Research Group at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. In cooperation with Yad Vashem.

Explore the documents! Search in categories like "Nuremberg Laws 1935", "Eviction and Disposession" or "November Pogroms 1938" to read and download documents from the published PMJ volumes for free.

For more information on the edition, please visit the project website. Follow us on Twitter @PMJ_documents.

All documents translated from the language of the original source
Updated and adapted for an English-language readership

Reviews

Reactions to the original German edition:

“A large-scale project long overdue”
Eckhard Fuhr, Die Welt

“The documents show a panorama of the antisemitic policies of the Nazi regime, of defamation, violence and denunciation. These are moving testimonies of helplessness and despair, of bitter disappointment, but also of the defiant pride of the persecuted.” Andreas Mix, Berliner Zeitung

“All the sources are edited with care and thoroughly researched annotations are added. … Taking everything into account an impressive source edition is to be expected – in the words of the editorial board – ‘a written monument to the murdered Jews of Europe’.” Manfred Gailus, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

“Reading the first 300 pages, it is difficult to put the volume down. The sources exert a powerful force.” Arno Widmann, Frankfurter Rundschau

“Whoever reads these volumes will get a more vivid impression than any visit to a museum can provide. … If the future volumes maintain this high standard, the publication of the Holocaust source collection will have been worthwhile.” Franziska Augstein, Süddeutsche Zeitung

"It is a tribute to the six million victims of Nazi terror. The collection is also a memorial to the disgrace of the perpetrators who brought death to those millions, along with the thousands who supported and aided the extermination of Jews. For present and future generations, it is a monument to the crime of genocide – its organization, planning and execution. From now on, no study on the history of the Holocaust will be complete without drawing on the most comprehensive collection of documents and testimonies ever published. No academic lecture or lesson in schools will be able to do without this publication, whose abbreviation PMJ, or VEJ in German, should be the foremost reference in the bibliography of any book on the subject." Maciej Stasińsk in: Gazeta Wyborcza, 24./25.6.2023 (translated from Polish)

Topics

Book 2019

Volume 1 German Reich 1933–1937

Wolf Gruner

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Executive editor: Wolf Gruner; English-language edition prepared by: Caroline Pearce and Dorothy Mas

This volume documents the persecution of the Jews in the German Reich between 1933 and 1937. The documents illustrate the ways in which the Jews in Germany were thrown out of their jobs and excluded from public institutions and public life, and how the Nuremberg Laws reduced the status of German Jews to second-class citizens and set out to sever the ties between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans. It documents the political calculations and strategy of the Nazi ruling elite in relation to antisemitic measures, and the local outbreaks of violence and terror against the Jewish population. It also illustrates the widespread indifference of non-Jewish Germans. In 1935 the Berlin rabbi Joachim Prinz described how the circumstances for the Jewish population had changed: ‘The Jew’s lot is to be neighbourless. We would not find it all so painful if we did not have the feeling that we once did have neighbours.’

Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110435191
ISBN:: 9783110435191
ISBN:: 9783110433210
ISBN:: 9783110353594
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Contemporary History until 1945
Subject:: Other Topics
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Germany
Subject:: General German History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2019

Volume 2 German Reich 1938–August 1939

Susanne Heim

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Executive editor: Susanne Heim; English-language edition prepared by: Caroline Pearce and Dorothy Mas

This volume documents the persecution of the Jews in the German Reich between January 1938 and the end of August 1939. In the months between the Anschluss of Austria and the start of the Second World War, the Nazi leadership plunged Jewish life further into crisis. ‘Aryanization’, bureaucratically organized expulsions, and ultimately the pogrom in November 1938 meant that for more and more Jews, life was untenable. At the same time, it became increasingly difficult to emigrate. In the aftermath of the pogrom of 9 November 1938, Morris Troper from the Jewish aid organization JDC (Joint Distribution Committee) recorded: ‘What is to become of the Jews in the next few weeks is altogether uncertain. Even if the disorders and arrests come to an end, the basis of the existence of German Jewry has been wiped out.’

Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110526387
ISBN:: 9783110526387
ISBN:: 9783110523904
ISBN:: 9783110523713
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Contemporary History until 1945
Subject:: Other Topics
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Germany
Subject:: General German History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2020

Volume 3 German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia September 1939–September 1941

Andrea Löw

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Executive editor: Andrea Löw; English-language edition prepared by: Caroline Pearce, Georg Felix Harsch, and Dorothy Mas

This volume chronicles the situation of the Jews in the German Reich and in the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia between the start of the Second World War and September 1941. The German authorities used the start of the war on 1 September 1939 as an opportunity to intensify the campaign against the supposed enemies within – primarily the Jews. Thousands of Jews were expelled to Poland and France in initial deportations. Emigration or flight became virtually impossible. In February 1941 a Jewish woman from Vienna feared for her parents: ‘We know now that there is no age limit, everyone is being sent away, little children, the very old, even sick people are taken from the hospital and transported somewhere, into uncertainty, into misery.’ The volume documents the increasing isolation of the German and Czech Jews and the plans and ambitions of their persecutors in the period leading up to the systematic deportations.

Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110526363
ISBN:: 9783110526363
ISBN:: 9783110523898
ISBN:: 9783110523744
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Contemporary History until 1945
Subject:: Other Topics
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Germany
Subject:: General German History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2023

Volume 4 Poland September 1939 – July 1941

Klaus-Peter Friedrich

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Executive editor: Klaus-Peter Friedrich; English-language edition prepared by: Elizabeth Harvey, Russell Alt-Haaker, Johannes Gamm, Georg Felix Harsch, Dorothy Mas, and Caroline Pearce

This volume, the first of three in the series focusing on the persecution and murder of the Jews in occupied Poland, documents the developments from the attack on Poland in September 1939 up to July 1941. It covers the territories of western and northern Poland annexed to the Reich as well as the General Government. With the attack on Poland, around two million Polish Jews came under German rule. Jews were immediately subjected to stigmatization and humiliation, exposed to arbitrary acts of violence, deprived of their livelihoods, subjected to forced labour and forcibly displaced. In July 1940, a report by representatives of Polish Jews on the situation in the annexed territories of Poland sent to the US embassy in Berlin described a ‘downcast, stigmatized Jewish population’, terrorized and powerless in face of displacement, expulsions and the increasing incarceration of the Jewish population in ghettos, and it predicted that ‘the process of destruction is not yet complete’. The volume documents the drive by the occupiers systematically to confiscate the property of the Polish Jews, and the different, often chaotic and conflicting strategies for displacing Jews in the annexed territories and in the General Government. The volume shows a range of reactions by the non-Jewish population of Poland to the escalating persecution of the Polish Jews. It also shows the efforts by Jewish organizations to publicize their plight abroad, to withstand the onslaught on their communities and to manage daily life in the increasingly desperate conditions of the ghettos.

Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687798
ISBN:: 9783110687798
ISBN:: 9783110687903
ISBN:: 9783110687378
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Contemporary History until 1945
Subject:: World War II
Subject:: Nazi Germany
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2021

Volume 5 Western and Northern Europe 1940–June 1942

Katja Happe, Michael Mayer, Maja Peers, Jean-Marc Dreyfus

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Executive editors: Katja Happe, Michael Mayer, and Maja Peers, with Jean-Marc Dreyfus; English-language edition prepared by: Caroline Pearce, Johannes Gamm, Georg Felix Harsch, and Dorothy Mas

In April-May 1940 the German Wehrmacht invaded Northern and Western Europe. The subsequent occupation of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France brought the Jewish population of these countries – both established residents and refugees – under German control. From autumn 1941 in Luxembourg and from spring/summer 1942 in Belgium, the Netherlands and occupied France, Jews were required to wear the ‘Jewish star’ and many were subjected to forced labour. By mid-1942, deportations from Luxembourg and France to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Eastern Europe had already begun, while in the other occupied countries they were imminent. In April 1942 Alfred Oppenheimer, the Jewish elder in Luxembourg, wrote: ‘A dreadful fate hangs over our community again. The worst that can happen has now happened and the Poland transport is a certainty.’ This volume covers Norway and Western Europe during the period from the German invasion to mid 1942 (developments in Denmark for this period are documented in vol. 12) and records how Jews in these parts of Europe were excluded from society and stripped of their rights, livelihoods, and property. Letters and diary entries by the persecuted Jews detail life under German occupation and the attempts by many Jews to emigrate. The sources show how Jewish organizations sought to alleviate the impact of persecution, and how the German occupiers and local collaborators targeted Jews with increasingly stringent measures and clamped down on any form of resistance.

Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687699
ISBN:: 9783110687699
ISBN:: 9783110687859
ISBN:: 9783110683332
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Contemporary History until 1945
Subject:: World War II
Subject:: Nazi Germany
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Ahead of Publication 2024

Volume 9 Poland: General Government August 1941–1945

Klaus-Peter Friedrich, Caroline Pearce

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This source edition on the persecution and murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany presents in a total of 16 volumes a thematically comprehensive selection of documents on the Holocaust. The work illustrates the contemporary contexts, the dynamics, and the intermediate stages of the political and social processes that led to this unprecedented mass crime. It can be used by teachers, researchers, students, and all other interested parties. The edition comprises authentic testimony by persecutors, victims, and onlookers. These testimonies are furnished with academic annotations and the vast majority of them are published here for the first time in English.

Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783110687880
ISBN:: 9783110687880
ISBN:: 9783110687767
ISBN:: 9783110687415
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Contemporary History until 1945
Subject:: World War II
Subject:: Nazi Germany
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2022

Volume 12 Western and Northern Europe June 1942–1945

Katja Happe, Barbara Lambauer, Clemens Maier-Wolthausen, Maja Peers

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Executive editors: Katja Happe, Barbara Lambauer, and Clemens Maier-Wolthausen, with Maja Peers; English-language edition prepared by: Elizabeth Harvey, Johannes Gamm, Georg Felix Harsch, Dorothy Mas, and Caroline Pearce

In summer 1942 the Germans escalated the systematic deportations of Jews from Western and Northern Europe to the extermination camps. In most of the countries under German control, the occupying forces initially focused on arresting foreign and stateless Jews, thereby securing the cooperation of local authorities. However, before long the entire Jewish population was targeted for deportation. This volume documents the parallels and differences in the persecution of Jews in occupied Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France in the period from summer 1942 to liberation; it records the implementation of the systematic deportation and murder of Jews from Western and Northern Europe, and it also records the rescue of more than 5,000 Danish Jews. In letters and diary entries the persecuted Jews describe their attempts to flee, life in hiding, the transit camps, and deportation transports that often took several days. In Westerbork camp in the occupied Netherlands, Bob Cahen, himself an inmate, recorded in his diary the arrival in the camp of 17,000 Jews from across the Netherlands in October 1942: ‘People arrived here herded like livestock. Some were buried beneath their luggage, others without any possessions at all, not even properly dressed. Women in poor health who had been hauled out of bed in thin nightgowns, children in undergarments and barefoot, the elderly, the ill, the infirm – more and more new people came to the camp.’ The sources in the volume show how the perpetrators attempted to dupe their victims regarding the destination of the transports, and how Jewish organizations attempted to alleviate the suffering of the deportees. The documents additionally illustrate how the resistance movement gained momentum during this period.

Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687736
ISBN:: 9783110687736
ISBN:: 9783110687873
ISBN:: 9783110683325
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Contemporary History until 1945
Subject:: World War II
Subject:: Nazi Germany
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Subject:: Jewish Studies
Subject:: Jewish History
Subject:: Holocaust
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg