Archi­tects of the Holo­caust presents the deeds of key lead­ers of the Ger­man gov­ern­ment and the Nazi regime. The book opens with Hitler’s rise to pow­er and the atmos­phere which allowed for it, includ­ing the after­math of World War I, Goebbels’s effec­tive pro­pa­gan­da, and youth recruit­ment. Inter­spersed are per­son­al nar­ra­tives by sur­vivors who wit­nessed the changes. The lat­ter half of the book dis­cuss­es con­cen­tra­tion and exter­mi­na­tion camps and the Nurem­berg tri­als and con­cludes with mod­ern reflec­tions on the atroc­i­ties. This book suc­ceeds in out­lin­ing a hor­rif­ic chap­ter in his­to­ry with­out over­sim­pli­fy­ing. The scale of the hor­rors per­pe­trat­ed against the Jew­ish peo­ple is nev­er min­i­mized, but the con­tent is han­dled in such a way that the audi­ence can grasp the events.

Enhanc­ing the text are numer­ous illus­tra­tions and pic­tures from the time, allow­ing stu­dents to visu­al­ize the ​“archi­tects” as well as get a feel for the atroc­i­ties. Death and destruc­tion are implied through pho­tos of piles of rings, Nazi par­ty lead­ers, ghet­to life, pro­pa­gan­da, and peo­ple in con­cen­tra­tion camps. This short book, part of a series called The Holo­caust, pub­lished most­ly for school libraries, is an excel­lent sur­vey of the his­to­ry and main archi­tects as well as peo­ple liv­ing at the time. Ages 12 and up.