I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 A Diary of the Nazi Years (I Will Bear Witness #1) Paperback | Pages: 544 pages

Be Specific About Books As I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 A Diary of the Nazi Years (I Will Bear Witness #1)

Original Title:	Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum Letzten
ISBN:	0375753788 (ISBN13: 9780375753787)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	I Will Bear Witness #1

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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."
                          
This book covers the years from 1933 to 1941. Volume Two, from 1941  to 1945, will be published in 1999.

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Title	:	I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 A Diary of the Nazi Years (I Will Bear Witness #1)
Author	:	Victor Klemperer
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 544 pages
Published	:	November 15th 1999 by Modern Library (first published 1995)
Categories	:	History. Nonfiction. World War II. Holocaust. War. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography

Rating Epithetical Books I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 A Diary of the Nazi Years (I Will Bear Witness #1)

Ratings: 4.24 From 1925 Users | 110 Reviews

Rate Epithetical Books I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 A Diary of the Nazi Years (I Will Bear Witness #1)

Pick it up again and start in 1940. You'll be surprised how the book changes.

Victor Klemperer was a professor of classical languages in Dresden. He lost his position and sense of security soon after Hitler took power. Although he had converted to Protestantism in 1911, he was classified a Jew by the Nazis. As Dresdens Jewish community steadily dwindled because of deportations to Lodz, Auschwitz, and Theresienstadt, since his wife, Eva, was a full-blooded Aryan they were kept safe from deportation until they were notified to prepare to leave the city on February 13, 1945.

A fascinating and in-depth journey of the lives of a married couple; the husband, a Jew converted to Christianity, and his Gentile wife. In Nazi Germany, a converted Jew was still a Jew, and so the couple suffered extreme hardship and persecution because of his Jewish heritage. Incredibly detailed---the diary form made you feel as if you were there with them, suffering every indignity every day for seven years and more. Shocking how slowly and deceptively the Nazis gradually took from them every

UPDATE 6/10/17 ...As part of my research in preparation for writing the next section of the sequel to A Flood of Evil, I read Klemperer's diary from 1936-38. Here are a few observations on the major events of the day ... Jul 1938 ... antisemitism is again greatly increased Jewish assets must be reported Jews are banned from certain trades yellow visitor's cards needed for baths the Academic Society for Research into Jewry is meeting in Munich the opening of art exhibitions in Munich and

I Will Bear Witness, 1933-1941 & 1942-1945A Diary of the Nazi YearsBy Victor KlempererVictor Klemperer was a professor of French literature, specializing in the Enlightenment, employed at the Technical University of Dresden at the time the Nazis came to power in 1933. At that point in his career he already had a few scholarly works in print and was planning another, a project on the 18th century he continued researching and writing until circumstances forced him to postpone that work. But he

This is a very dense book, but Klemperer truly does bear witness to the atrocities of Germany under Hitler. It was truly horrifying to read about what the people of Germany, and Jews in general, had to endure.

I found this diary fascinating and believe it's an indispensable work of history -- almost one-of-a-kind. You see a lot of diaries and memoirs from the Holocaust/WW2 years, but not much from the mid- to late-1930s and the rise of Hitler. Reading Klemperer's diary, which covers January 1933 through December 1941, you can see how the fascist state gradually chipped away at the rights of Jews, and the Holocaust was accomplished in little baby steps. I can summarize it like this:Jewish civil