The City Without Jews

This is a truly major work, both deeply moving and incredibly powerful. It is a masterpiece of research, structure and writing. Never before has anyone so brilliantly integrated the history of the Nazi onslaught on the Jews of Vienna – a more vicious explosion even than in Germany – with the intimate experience of their victims. It is an unforgettable story of greed, betrayal and hypocrisy, self-sacrifice, impossible moral choices and survivor guilt – Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad
An important book by one of our best historians – Simon Sebag Montefiore
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 – Adam LeBor * The Times *
A vivid account of persecution, betrayal and genocide … Smith has brought [this story] alive with forensic detail and a truly gripping narrative – Luka Ivan Jukic * Financial Times *
Sweeping … 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 * The Atlantic *
A chilling account of the purging of Jewish life from Vienna … Through Smith’s skillful use of primary sources, Mignon Langnas joins her fellow diarists Anne Frank and Victor Klemperer as eyewitnesses to catastrophe and witnesses for posterity – Dominic Green * Wall Street Journal *
Scholarly and vivid … fascinating … Smith is unsparing in the clarity with which he confronts these horrific events – Caroline Moorehead * Literary Review *
A gripping, intimate Holocaust saga that celebrates extraordinary tenacity in the face of destruction * Publishers Weekly *
Shocking and profoundly moving, this meticulously researched history of the Nazi destruction of Jewish Vienna is a fierce and important work – Clare Mulley, Women’s Prize shortlisted author of Agent Zo
Painful, profound, prescient. Douglas Smith’s The City Without Jews is a magisterial work but also an intimate one and all the more powerful for it – Sonia Purnell, author of Kingmaker and A Woman of No Importance
Douglas Smith once again demonstrates his impressive historical scope and meticulous scholarship … this unflinching narrative is an important contribution to the canon of Holocaust history – Helen Rappaport, author of The Romanov Sisters
Powerful and well-researched … Reading the stories of Vienna’s Jews in their own voices leaves an indelible scar … A magnificent history of Vienna’s antisemitic past * Starred Kirkus review *
The City Without Jews exposes the descent of one of the world’s most beautiful cities into hell, through the lives of one family torn apart in the process. Moving gracefully between the grand and the intimate scale, this beautifully written book will change the way you see Vienna forever – Rebecca Clifford, author of Survivors
In Douglas Smith’s extraordinary work, the city of Vienna becomes a character for which we feel and grieve. Superbly researched and written, this book unflinchingly and beautifully documents the fate of Viennese Jews during the Nazi years. It is moving, compelling and important reading. A tour-de-force – Ariana Neumann, author of When Time Stopped

Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator. He is the author of Rasputin, Former People (a Sunday Times bestseller), and The City Without Jews. His books have been translated into a dozen languages.

A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

He lives in Seattle.

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