All the Horrors of War tells a remarkable story about perseverance and what it means to save another’s life. Focusing on the journeys of two people whose paths, if not for war, would never have crossed, it follows Brigadier Glyn Hughes, the British officer who spearheaded relief efforts at Bergen-Belsen, and Rachel Genuth, a teenager from a poor family in Sighet, Transylvania, who would grow up to become author Bernice Lerner’s mother. 

Through Rachel’s and Hughes’s interwoven stories, we see the personal fallout for both those being crushed by Hitler’s reign and those who fought their way across Europe to stop him at all costs. We learn why thousands of inmates died after Bergen-Belsen's liberation, how thousands were saved, and what the experience was like for the rescuers. We learn how Hughes carried the knowledge of what he had seen, and Rachel, what she had endured.

For more about the book and its protagonists, click here.

All the Horrors of War is available at: Johns Hopkins University Press, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. (It can also be ordered through your favorite independent bookstore.)

The Audible Audiobook All the Horrors of War is available here.

For discussion questions pertaining to the book, click here.

Praise

“Lerner seamlessly weaves two powerful personal stories into a unique and evocative page-turner… Many of you have read extensively about the Holocaust. You will still find this a completely fresh account, the mix of the journeys by a liberator and by a survivor, told from the intimate perch of the survivor’s daughter. All the Horrors of War is a book of considerable scholarship and talented storytelling.”— Trisha Posner, author of The Pharmacist of Auschwitz

“Truly well done, moving, poignant, heartbreaking, provocative, edifying, and so much more.” — Grand Rabbi Y.A. Korff, Chaplain of the City of Boston

“A treatise of astounding depth…” — Gloria Goldreich, Hadassah Magazine

“A towering achievement, Lerner's book is at once an extraordinary honoring of two human beings, one who is as close to her as we ever get to another, and one she never met. Her narrative brings us into hell, along with Rachel and Hughes, and then lifts us out on the strength of their respective forms of courage and generosity. This true, meticulously researched story is as inspiring as it is horrifying and dispiriting—Lerner has created something to nourish the soul.” — Dr. Robert Kegan, Harvard University, author of The Evolving Self: Problems and Process in Human Development

“Dr. Lerner masterfully combines the fruits of her scholarly research with gripping and engaging storytelling” — Robin Lindley, History News Network

“Focusing on the traumatization of the liberator as well as the survivor, Lerner tells two fascinating stories that are original in both form and content. Her writing is clear, straightforward, and compelling. A powerful and engaging book." — Dr. Michael A. Grodin, MD, Boston University School of Public Health, coauthor of The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation

"Bernice Lerner's All the Horrors of War is a powerful and poignant tale that traces both the arc of the war and the history of the Holocaust. In this meticulously researched and detailed account, Lerner never lets the reader forget the humanity of the victims or their liberators." — Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Director, Sigi Ziering Holocaust Institute, American Jewish University

“By describing the fate of one Jewish girl destined to die under the most gruesome manner and the horror experienced by a British doctor and officer upon stepping into a Nazi concentration camp, Lerner humanizes an event that is often described only from one perspective: either that of the liberators, for whom the survivors were often dehumanized 'living skeletons' because of their deplorable living conditions, or that of the survivors, for whom the liberators were angels of mercy descended from heaven after months and years of utter dehumanization by their tormentors. A valuable and highly readable book." — Dr. Omer Bartov, Brown University, author of Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz

“Bernice Lerner has given us a haunting account of her mother’s trials as an adolescent in one of the most brutal concentration camps, Bergen-Belsen, interspersed with the story of the decorated British physician who was charged with setting up the medical facilities there when the war was finally over. The war was not over for Lerner’s sick mother or for Dr. Glyn Hughes, who both had to find ways out of the haunting shadows of WWII. . . We follow each story until we learn how the one who saved and the one who was saved shared a narrative that impacted each for the rest of their lives. Lerner has brought honor to both her mother and this remarkable physician. Her book is well researched and informed by both heart and mind. I could not put it down until I finished it.” — Dr. Erica Brown, director, Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership, The George Washington University; author of Happier Endings: A Meditation on Life and Death and Leadership in the Wilderness: Authority and Anarchy in the Book of Numbers

In All the Horrors of War, Bernice Lerner compellingly links her mother's story of survival during World War II with the story of Brigadier Hugh Llewelyn Glyn Hughes, the first allied medical officer to enter Bergen-Belsen and the man responsible for ensuring that food and medical supplies be made available to thousands of desperate camp inmates. Lerner's moving and engaging account underscores the ways luck, courage, and a wide range of factors outside her mother's control, including the weeks in Bergen-Belsen under Hughes's leadership, allowed her mother to overcome the dangers she faced. In so doing, Lerner uses the story of two people who never met to document the ways World War II made allies of strangers and transformed forever the lives of those who were caught up in the maelstrom.” — Dr. Maud S. Mandel, President, Professor of History, Williams College, author of Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict

"Dr. Bernice Lerner's new book deserves high praise and wide readership. Although the mind recoils at the immoral enormity of what she describes, the story of these two courageous individuals stands in sharp contrast to the darkness of the most evil period in human history." — Dr. Michael D. Aeschliman, Boston University, author of The Restoration of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism