Preface Summary and Analysis

People hear vaguely about Nazi annihilation camps in 1942, as the tide of war turns, but the system seems so vast as to be unbelievable. This is as the Nazis hope. Evidence is suppressed incompletely, and the ruins admit no other purpose but to eliminate all trace of atrocities. Survivors are kept from telling their secrets, and postwar Germans collectively suffer "willed ignorance"—the slave labor system is too integral a part of the German economy to allow this. Survivor's stories are the major source for reconstructing what happens, but they must be read critically, for survivors lack an overall perspective. Most are the "privileged," whose status affects objectivity. The best observers are political prisoners. Forty years after liberation, much remains to be explored. Only recently have complete data been available, while memories blur and grow stylized. Only first-arrival impressions seem...