Crucible of Terror | Max Liebster

Crucible of Terror recounts in searing detail Liebster’s torturous journey through five Nazi concentration camps, including the notorious Auschwitz. It is a drama of survival, but even more, it is a story of hope and moral courage.

In heartbreaking detail, this memoir plunges its readers into the depths of the Holocaust’s darkness. In that darkness the human spirit did not triumph, but the testimony of survivors such as Max Liebster shows that resistance against evil and despair are not only possible but also essential in a world still imperiled by threats of mass destruction and genocide.
John K. Roth,
Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy,
Claremont McKenna College
Author, Holocaust Politics

A moving story illustrating both the positive survival of faith under the harshest conditions, and the negative long-term effects of traumatic stress.
Rick Allen, Ph.D.,
Licensed Psychologist,
Disaster and Trauma Mitigation Specialty
University of California Santa Cruz
Max Liebster’s account of his experiences in the labor and death camps of the Nazis is an absorbing story of his despair and ultimate return to hope and faith through his encounter in the inferno with the incredible faith and fortitude of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Written with clarity and dedication, his book is testimony to himself and the Witnesses who, suffering unbelievable hardships and under penalty of death, nevertheless resisted the Nazis in a manner consistent with the message of Jesus and the intense faith of the early Christians. His book is essential reading for those who have been disillusioned by the behavior of the mainstream Christian Churches in the face of the greatest moral crisis of modern history.
John Weiss,
Emeritus Professor of Modern European History
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York

What makes Max Liebster’s memoir of survival in Nazi Germany so compelling is its sense of high moral purpose. Liebster witnesses the brutalizing perpetrators as well as those who gave him hope and saved his life. An important book in the literature of the Holocaust.
Sonia Pilcer
Author, The Holocaust Kid