My thanks and respect go to the authors of the many important studies and documentation since the epochal years 1989–90, including The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933–1945, abbreviated in the notes as VEJ, for which I served as coeditor for five years. As of 2017, ten of the sixteen planned volumes had appeared. This project, and the way in which my colleagues so naturally included different European perspectives, reinforced my decision to write this book.
I wrote large portions of this book in the library at Yad Vashem. My special gratitude goes out to the always helpful and friendly people who work at this memorial and research institution. I discussed my drafts with friends in Berlin, Vienna, Tutzing, and Jerusalem, and particular gratitude is due to Yehuda Bauer among many others. Israeli historians have long included the broader European context in their analyses of the Shoah.
I would also like to acknowledge my elegant English translator, Jefferson Chase, and wonderfully insightful and keen-eyed editor, Sara Bershtel at Metropolitan, together with the publisher’s staff, for helping to bring my work to a wider international audience.