Unlike other historians who had written on the subject, such as Bogdan Musiał, Dieter Pohl, and Christopher Browning, Silberklang makes extensive use of Jewish sources in Yiddish and Hebrew.

[8][9] Nine chapters, thematically organized, discuss such issues as the Nisko Plan, German administration, forced labor, and deportations to the extermination camps.

Silberklang argues that, contrary to the centrality of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Holocaust studies, Bełżec was "perhaps the place most representative of the totality and finality of the Nazi plans for Jews".

[9] A review by Andrea Löw in sehepunkte [de], stated that the book is the first comprehensive study of the Holocaust in the Lublin District.

[15] Laurence Weinbaum writes, "His incisive and analytical book is an outstanding contribution to the rapidly expanding literature on the destruction of local Jewish communities and regional centers.