A vivid, granular portrait of the Jews of Vienna and their demise ... Smith’s book helped me understand why, underneath that old-world allure, I detected a certain airlessness: When Vienna lost its Jews, it lost its soul.
This is an important and deeply researched book. By focusing in depth on one key city, it substantially adds to our understanding of how the Nazi system of genocide and plunder operated.
Smith’s account of the evolution of the Final Solution in Vienna, based on an impressive familiarity with primary and secondary sources, manages to be both cogent and comprehensive ... Truly compelling ... Masterful.
This is a book of civic history on both the personal and the grand scale ... And, after all, isn’t that what history is supposed to do? ... A magnificent history of Vienna’s antisemitic past, told through the voices of those who lived and died there.
