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Rating: 
Summary: Where it all begins
Review: Hillberg wrote this as a Phd thesis, and therefore it is a carefully researched book. I have an original copy signed by the author, and it came at a time to be my first major purchase on the subject. I had a chance to hear him speak a couple of years ago and brought my copy along. He was amazed that any still existed. Because of the purpose, it is not a "story," but a well done place for any one serious in learning could well start. His beginning statement of the eras of Jewish history is still the best I've ever hear in the 45 yrs. of collecting--read it and see.
Rating: 
Summary: Summary of life & work of the greatest Holocaust historian
Review: The memoir is a much needed supplement for the scholarly works of undoubtedly peerless Holocaust researcher. All the process of transforming of Holocaust studies from metaphysical reflections into a scholarly discipline is revealed before our eyes, with almost tragic touch of author's own fate as "controversial"(for some) and plagiated scholar. And also a personal note: Gauleiter Kube, a much maligned Hitler's boss of Belorussia, got in Hillberg's magnum opus Destruction of European Jews some flesh and blood which made me understand better the Holocaust reality in my native land.
Hilberg's works are surely uneasy reading for those who perceive the Holocaust through a comforting model reduced to "... a more familiar picture of a struggle-- however unequal--between combatants" (p.135).
The language of the book is unusual and its laconism , though sometimes veiling the sense, is accompanied by inner dramatic beauty and power.
In general, Hilberg's memoir is a mind-nourishing and thought-provoking book, a must for anyone with an interest in history of the 20th century.
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