The signal for the coming end of the Jews in Germany and Europe began with a law declaring them aliens in their own country. The 1935 Nuremberg law that stripped the Jews of citizenship was met with silent acquiescence by the vast majority of Germans. But not by justice inspector Friedrich Kellner: “If the Jews, who have contributed real achievements over the centuries to our nation’s development, can be made a people without rights, that is an act unworthy of a cultured nation, and the curse of this evil deed will indelibly rest on the entire German people.”

As a Social Democrat, Kellner campaigned against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party during the ill-fated Weimar Republic. When Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Kellner began a diary to record Nazi crimes: a primary source document that the editor of Der Spiegel magazine considers “An image of Nazi Germany never seen before in such a vivid form.”