By Lyn Smith. A unique oral history of the entire span of the Holocaust based on interviews from the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum and the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. (From Booklist) Working as a freelance interviewer for the Imperial War Museum's Sound Archive in London and the National Holocaust Museum's Sound Archive in Washington, D.C., Smith recorded testimonies of men and women who had been directly affected by the tragedy. This includes not only Jewish survivors but also refugees, families of those murdered, aid workers, and soldiers who liberated the concentration camps. More than 100 testimonies have been selected for this book. Details were often too painful to recall, and many of those interviewed explained the inadequacy of language to convey the sights, sounds, smells, humiliation, degradation, and terror they endured. Although, as one Jewish survivor explained, the law of the jungle prevailed in the camps, many instances of mutual support, goodness, and acts of reciprocity also took place. Although often of a gallows nature, jokes were made in the grimmest of circumstances. This selection will take its place among the books that vividly document the Holocaust. -- George Cohen. Basic Books (2007), English, Paperback: 368 pages.