With The Years of Extermination , Saul Friedländer completes his major historical work on Nazi Germany and the Jews. The book describes and interprets the persecution and murder of the Jews throughout occupied Europe. The enactment of German extermination policies and measures depended on the cooperation of local authorities, the assistance of police forces, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. This implementation depended as well on the victims readiness to submit to orders, often with the hope of attenuating them or of surviving long enough to escape the German vise. This multifaceted study—at all levels and in different places—enhances the perception of the magnitude, complexity, and interrelatedness of the many components of this history. Based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices—mainly from diaries, letters, and memoirs—Saul Friedländer avoids domesticating the memory of these unprecedented and horrific events. The convergence of these various aspects gives a unique quality to The Years of Extermination . In this work, the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.

弗里德兰德尔出生于布拉格，1939年逃往法国，1948年移居以色列。他现在在洛杉矶的加利福尼亚大学讲授历史。　　1997年，索尔·弗里德兰德尔的《迫害的年代：纳粹德国与犹太人，1933一1939》出版发行，这是他的两卷历史著作《纳粹德国与犹太人》的第一卷。他在前言中说．他的意图是”从历史角度真实记录大屠杀．把凶手实施的政策、周围社会的态度和受害者的世界放在一个完整的框架里”。弗里德兰德尔的第二卷《灭绝的年代：纳粹德国与犹太人．1939—1945》也是一样。这本书如今已经成为记述纳粹德国大规模谋杀欧洲犹太人的权威历史著作。