Germans of mixed race ancestry fared badly in Nazi Germany. Thomas Paul Bernstein was one of them, a half-Jew who barely survived the brutalities of the Third Reich.

He and his sister, Barbara, tell their story in Holocaust: German History And Our Half-Jewish Family (Cherry Orchard Books/Academic Studies Press), a book of distinction in terms of content and style. It is based, in part, on conversations with their late mother, Johanna Moosdorf, a novelist and poet, and on a lengthy letter she wrote to them about their Jewish father, Paul.

Holocaust is greatly enhanced by succinct but illuminating chapters on antisemitism in Germany, the Nazi persecution of Jews, and the treatment that the regime meted out to Jews of partial Jewish descent.

At the center of this absorbing volume is Paul Bernstein, an assimilated and patriotic Jew from Berlin who served in the German army during World War I.

Of the 66,000 Jews who enlisted, 12,000 were killed. Thirty five thousand Jewish soldiers received military medals. One Jewish soldier was the recipient of the Pour le Merit, the highest decoration for valor.

Yet in 1916, antisemitic officers propagated the canard that Jews were shirking combat. This lie prompted the emperor, Wilhelm II, to order an investigation into the matter. A report showed that the percentage of Jews serving on the front lines was as high as Christians, but this information was kept under wraps.

It goes without saying........

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