Miami Herald Top 11 Books of 2001. Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust is a chilling, highly visceral account of the shameful history of IBM and its inexcusable collaboration with the Nazis before -- and during -- the second World War. Scholarly and methodical, Black's prose is passionate though devoid of hysterics; truly a monumental accomplishment.

Richard Pachter Miami Herald READ ARTICLE

Among the most explosive of new allegations unearthed by Black is that in 1942, with America at war with Germany, IBM's chief New York attorney, Harrison Chauncey, met in Berlin with the manager of the company's Czech subsidiary.

Brian Kates New York Daily News READ ARTICLE

Today's high-tech executive could do worse than read Black's book, and perhaps read a little of the history of WWII. It's rare that a company can allegedly choose the wrong side in a horrible war and get away with it. Always remember, there's an Ed Black lurking out there with pictures and a story to tell.

John Dvorak PC Magazine READ ARTICLE

One year ago, the hardcover edition of "IBM and the Holocaust" came out. Meticulously researched by scores of international scholars, the book remained under wraps until it hit the stores. It was an immediate sensation, detailing IBM's blatant collaboration with (and technological facilitation of) the Nazi regime's proposed Final Solution, the extermination of European Jewry. The just-released paperback version of Edwin Black's frightening work contains startling new material that specifically details the direct connection between IBM's New York office and Nazi-run Polish concentration camps. The new edition also reports on current IBM management's determined obfuscation in the wake of Black's revelations, resulting in an even more essential and imperative accounting of this heretofore hidden chapter of history.

San Jose Mercury News READ ARTICLE

What's remarkable about the IBM revelations is not that such things occurred (sad and alarming enough), but that IBM could be so open about its work with Nazi Germany and that we are only shocked now, six decades after the fact. In 1940, in the face of anti-Nazi protests, Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM, made a public point of returning a medal he received from Hitler. The grim reality was that he deserved the medal, and Hitler knew exactly who he was rewarding and why.

Suzanne Fields Insight on the News READ ARTICLE

My affection for the laptop computer I schlep from here to there has darkened since publication of Edwin Black's "IBM and the Holocaust." ...As an American who bought an expensive IBM product half a century after the war, I am more than frustrated at losing an opportunity to get answers to questions raised in the book ... Where are IBM's records from Geneva and Paris that are referenced in IBM papers seen by lawyers' researchers? What happened to Watson's private papers? IBM owes the public more than a passive response to its history. ... The world's biggest computer company, which advertises itself as being about solutions, should now take the lead in confronting the question of whether its machines were used on any level for Hitler's "Final Solution."

Hilary Abramson managing editor Pacific News Service

If you get a chance, pick up a copy of 'IBM and the Holocaust' at your favorite bookstore or check it out from your local library. It's somewhat lengthy, but it illustrates, in fascinating detail, the role that International Business Machines - IBM to you and me - played in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Apparently, IBM - or should I say Dehomag, its German subsidiary - worked closely with the Nazis to develop the technology used in the cataloging and processing of Jews prior to World War II. In fact, the founder of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, received a German medal, replete with swastikas, for his efforts. The Nazis would have worked to exterminate the Jewish people without IBM's help, but IBM's Hollerith punch card system, the computer of its time, greatly facilitated the process. . . . And why did IBM work so closely with the Third Reich?... for the Reich Marks, of course.

Robert Perkins Editor Houston Gazette READ ARTICLE

There have been other books and articles that mentioned IBM's complicity with Hitler's Third Reich. But the whole story -- from 1933 until the end of the war -- has never been documented as it is in Edwin Black's new book, IBM and the Holocaust. We need books like this to serve as a reminder, to ensure that the phrase "Never again" is not forgotten.

North California Jewish Bulletin

Reading the expose, I couldn't help but think of David and Goliath.

Aron Hirt-Manheimer Reform Judaism

There is a chilling historical precedent for the misuse of census data — one not nearly as widely known as it deserves to be. That abuse was an integral part of the genocidal policies of Nazi Germany during World War II. Edwin Black's extraordinary and meticulously documented book, IBM and the Holocaust, details how the Nazis used card-sorting machines (the nearest thing to computers in those days) leased from International Business Machines (and largely operated by that company) to sift through mountains of European census data in order to identify "undesirables" — Jews, Gypsies, physically and mentally handicapped people, and so on, and tag them for eventual destruction.

Gordon Caswell Eugene Weekly READ ARTICLE