The passionate, gripping, true story of one man’s single-minded quest to reclaim what the Nazis stole from his family, their beloved art collection, and to restore their legacy.Simon Goodman’s grandparents came from German-Jewish banking dynasties and perished in concentration camps. And that’s almost all he knew about them—his father rarely spoke of their family history or heritage. But when he passed away, and Simon received his father’s old papers, a story began to emerge. The Gutmanns, as they were known then, rose from a small Bohemian hamlet to become one of Germany’s most powerful banking families. They also amassed a magnificent, world-class art collection that included works by Degas, Renoir, Botticelli, Guardi, and many, many others. But the Nazi regime snatched from them everything they had worked to build: their remarkable art, their immense wealth, their prominent social standing, and their very lives. Simon grew up in London with little knowledge of his father’s efforts to recover their family’s prized possessions. It was only after his father’s death that Simon began to piece together the clues about the Gutmanns’ stolen legacy and the Nazi looting machine. He learned much of the collection had gone to Hitler and Hermann Goering; other works had been smuggled through Switzerland, sold and resold to collectors and dealers, with many works now in famous museums. More still had been recovered by Allied forces only to be stolen again by heartless bureaucrats—European governments quietly absorbed thousands of works of art into their own collections. Through painstaking detective work across two continents, Simon has been able to prove that many works belonged to his family, and successfully secure their return. With the help of his family, Simon initiated the first Nazi looting case to be settled in the United States. They also brought about the first major restitution in The Netherlands since the post-war era. Goodman’s dramatic story, told with great heart, reveals a rich family history almost obliterated by the Nazis. It is not only the account of a twenty-year long detective hunt for family treasure, but an unforgettable tale of redemption and restoration.

In 1939 all German Jews had to become members of a newly founded Reich Association. The Jewish functionaries of this organization were faced with circumstances and events that forced them to walk a fine line between responsible action and collaboration. They had hoped to support mass emigration, mitigate the consequences of the anti-Jewish measures, and take care of the remaining community. When the Nazis forbade emigration and started mass deportations in 1941, the functionaries decided to cooperate to prevent the "worst." In choosing to cooperate, they came into direct opposition with the interests of their members, who were then deported. In June 1943 all unprotected Jews were deported along with their representatives, and the so-called intermediaries supplied the rest of the community, which consisted of Jews living in mixed marriages. The study deals with the tasks of these men, the fate of the Jews in mixed marriages, and what happened to the survivors after the war.

Revised and expanded, the second edition of this highly successful Seminar Study introduces readers to the historical phenomenon of Hitler's Third Reich. The new edition includes two brand new chapters, one on Nazi policy towards the Jews between 1933 and 1939 and one on the Holocaust itself. Fully updated, the study remains as useful and as thought-provoking as ever.

Product Description: This is a story of suffering and heroism, love and hatred, death and survival during the most destructive years of the 20th century in Europe. The book recounts the history of Kate Bosse-Griffiths and her family during the Second World War, and the effects of the Nazi policy of genocide on her and her family, of German-Jewish descent...read more

Product Description: Germany's changing historical memory of World War II and its aftermath, as reflected in the official and public remembrance of the German war dead, exposes an unresolved tension between a discourse of guilt and a discourse of national suffering and victimization...read more

Product Description: Studies in Social Discontinuity series.

Examines the anti-Semitism that led to Nazi Germany's attempts to exterminate Europe's Jewish population, focusing on the people and events from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 to the onset of World War II

Product Description: From the French Revolution to Vatican II, the institutional Catholic Church has opposed much that modernity has offered men and women constructing their societies. This book focuses on the experiences of German Catholics as they have worked to engage their faith with their culture in the midst of the two world wars, the barbarism of the Nazi era, and the uncertainties and conflicts of the post-World War II world...read more

Product Description: The Halbjuden of Hitler's Germany were half Christian and half Jewish but, like the rest of the Mischlinge (or "partial-Jews"), were far too Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis. Thus, while they were allowed for a time to coexist with the rest of German society, they were granted only the most marginal or menial jobs, restricted from marrying Aryans or even leading normal social lives, and sent eventually to forced-labor and concentration camps...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In a gripping exchange of letters written in the closing years of the 20th century, two men struggle to come to terms with the signal event of their time, the Holocaust. Born in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany in the early part of the 20th century, both bore witness to the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, Hitler, World War II, and the Holocaust...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Sigmund Stein was a prominent lawyer in the town of Hochburg, a German with deep roots in rural Germany. When fellow Jews urged Stein to leave Germany in the 1930s and after, he refused, arguing that he could best serve his people by acting as a buffer between the Jewish community and the Nazis...read more

Product Description: From April 1933 to early 1943, Bernard Loesener served as the official “Jewish Expert” in the German Third Reich's Ministry of the Interior, the government body responsible for the Nazi's legislative assault on German Jewry. In that role, he personally drafted much of the legislation, the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 preeminently, that gradually dispossessed, disenfranchised, and dehumanized the Jews of Nazi Germany...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Examines the Gestapo as an instrument of terror in Nazi Germany, arguing that the relatively small organization relied on the complicity of ordinary Germans to support their program of selective terror that targeted Jews and other specific groups

Draws on memoirs, diaries, and letters of Jews living in Nazi Germany at the start of the holocaust

Product Description: What has Germany made of its Nazi past? A significant new look at the legacy of the Nazi regime, this book exposes the workings of past beliefs and political interests on how--and how differently--the two Germanys have recalled the crimes of Nazism, from the anti-Nazi emigration of the 1930s through the establishment of a day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism in 1996...read more

Examines the anti-Semitism that led to Nazi Germany's attempts to exterminate Europe's Jewish population, focusing on the people and events from the Nazi accession to power in 1933 to the onset of World War II

(view table of contents)

Product Description: This collection of new studies in German history is published in honour of John A. Moses, one of Australia's foremost German historians. The essays collected here, written by some of the most distinguished scholars working in America, Europe, and Australia, reflect the contribution that Professor Moses has made to our understanding of modern German history, and, in particular, to the complex relationship among the Church, the State, and opposition movements such as Trade Unionism and Communism...read more