Included in the package is a book with complete transcripts that should further enhance the set's value as an educational tool. Will Bear Witness was not intended as an educational tool, but it certainly serves that purpose. The German academic, who was born a Jew but raised a secular Protestant, kept an extensive daily diary throughout his life, but only recently have his writings on the persecution of Jews been translated and widely released. The devil is literally in the details. The second volume of I Will Bear Witness begins in 1942, shortly before Hitler stepped up his efforts to exterminate Jews.
Public transportation is made illegal.
Food rations are cut. Haircuts are forbidden. Intrusive and abusive house inspection by the Gestapo becomes a regular occurrence. In a chilling foreshadowing of the Final Solution, house pets are banned and the Klemperers are forced to euthanize their cat. Gradually, the scant freedoms granted Klemperer and his few friends erode, and the omnipresent threat of the death camps grows more manifest.