With THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION, Saul Friedl?nder completes his major historical work on Nazi Germany and the Jews. The book describes and interprets the persecution and murder of the Jews throughout occupied Europe. The enactment of German extermination policies and measures depended on the cooperation of local authorities, the assistance of police forces, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. This implementation depended as well on the victims? readiness to submit to orders, often with the hope of attenuating them or of surviving long enough to escape the German vise.