Summary
David Cesarani's Final Solution is a magisterial work of history that chronicles the fate of Europe's Jews. Based on decades of scholarship, documentation newly available from the opening of Soviet archives, declassification of Western intelligence service records, as well as diaries and reports written in the camps, Cesarani provides a sweeping reappraisal that challenges accepted explanations for the anti-Jewish politics of Nazi Germany and the inevitability of the "final solution." The persecution of the Jews, asCesarani sees it, was not always the Nazis' central preoccupation, nor was it inevitable. He shows how, in German-occupied countries, it unfolded erratically, often due to local initiatives. For Cesarani, war was critical to the Jewish fate. Military failure denied the Germans opportunities to expel Jews into a distant territory and created a crisis of resources that led to the starvation of the ghettos and intensified anti-Jewish measures. Looking at the historical record, he disputes the iconic role of railways and deportation trains. From prisoner diaries, he exposes the extent of sexual violence and abuse of Jewish women and follows the journey of some Jewish prisoners to displaced persons camps. David Cesarani's Final Solution is the new standard chronicle of the fate of a heroic people caught in the hell that was Hitler's Germany.
David Cesarani was born in London, England on November 13, 1956. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Cambridge University, a master's degree in Jewish history from Columbia University, and a doctorate in history from Oxford University. He was a scholar of contemporary Jewish history. He taught at the University of Leeds, Queen Mary University of London, the University of Southampton, and Royal Holloway, a constituent college of the University of London.
He wrote several books including The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841-1991; The Holocaust; Justice Delayed: How Britain Became a Refuge for Nazi War Criminals; Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind; Major Farran's Hat: Murder, Scandal and Britain's War Against Jewish Terrorism, 1945-1948; and Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews, 1933-49. Eichmann: His Life and Crimes was published as Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a 'Desk Murderer' in the United States and received a National Jewish Book Award in 2006. He was named to the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for his work in helping Britain establish Holocaust Memorial Day. He died from complications of recent surgery on October 25, 2015 at the age of 58.
(Bowker Author Biography)
