In August 1945 Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian leaders of the Nazi regime. G. M. Gilbert, the prison psychologist, had an unrivaled firsthand opportunity to watch and question the Nazi war criminals. With scientific dispassion he encouraged Goeering, Speer, Hess, Ribbentrop, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, Streicher, and the others to reveal their innermost thoughts. In the process Gilbert exposed what motivated them to create the distorted Aryan utopia and the nightmarish worlds of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald. Here are their day-to-day reactions to the trial proceedings their off-the-record opinions of Hitler, the Third Reich, and each other their views on slave labour, death camps, and the Jews their testimony, feuds, and desperate maneuverings to dissociate themselves from the Third Reich's defeat and Nazi guilt. Dr. Gilbert's thorough knowledge of German, deliberately informal approach, and complete freedom of access at all times to the defendants give his spellbinding, chilling study an intimacy and insight that remains unequaled.

A leading Yugoslav dissident offers valuable insights into the demise of communism and the bloody mayhem that followed in its wake.
The collapse of communism in Europe liberated Yugoslavia only to see it plunge into a brutal civil war between religious, ethnic, and nationalist factions. Why did communism's nonviolent end ignite a nationalist war that has exacted such a high price in human suffering?
International affairs scholar Svetozar Stojanovi? a member of the famous Praxis group that resisted the communists has studied the developments in his war-torn homeland. He examines the internal and external factors that forced the transition from communist rule to democracy and a free-market economy. His insider's, behind-the-scenes look at the internal power struggles that pull factions in various directions, examines the cultural weaknesses of communism, the "capitalist encirclement" of Marxist-socialist economies, communism's ideological decay, and the roles played by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The Fall of Yugoslavia also examines the international reaction to these historic developments. Stojanovi? urges the West not to fall victim to a "triumphalistic temptation," with as yet unforeseen consequences, but to anticipate and face the problems in this volatile Yugoslav region.

In May 1933, a young man named Rudolf Schwab fled Nazi-occupied Germany. His departure allegedly came at the insistence of a close friend who later joined the Party. Schwab eventually arrived in South Africa, one of the few countries left where Jews could seek refuge, and years later, resumed a relationship in letters with the Nazi who in many ways saved his life. From Things Lost: Forgotten Letters and the Legacy of the Holocaust is a story of displacement, survival, and an unlikely friendship in the wake of the Holocaust via an extraordinary collection of letters discovered in a forgotten trunk. Only a handful of extended Schwab family members were alive in the war's aftermath. Dispersed across five continents, their lives mirrored those of countless refugees who landed in the most unlikely places. Over years in exile, a web of communication became an alternative world for these refugees, a place where they could remember what they had lost and rebuild their identities anew. Among the cast of characters that historian Shirli Gilbert came to know through the letters, one name that appeared again and again was Karl Kipfer. He was someone with whom Rudolf clearly got on exceedingly well-there was lots of joking, familiarity, and sentimental reminiscing. ""That was Grandpa's best friend growing up,"" Rudolf's grandson explained to Gilbert; ""He was a Nazi and was the one who encouraged Rudolf to leave Germany. . . . He also later helped him to recover the family's property."" Gilbert takes readers on a journey through a family's personal history wherein we learn about a cynical Karl who attempts to make amends for his ""undemocratic past,"" and a version of Rudolf who spends hours aloof at his Johannesburg writing desk, dressed in his Sunday finest, holding together the fragile threads of his existence. The Schwab family's story brings us closer to grasping the complex choices and motivations that-even in extreme situations, or perhaps because of them-make us human. In a world of devastation, the letters in From Things Lost act as a surrogate for the gravestones that did not exist and funerals that were never held. Readers of personal accounts of the Holocaust will be swept away by this intimate story.