Why is the book important/useful for understanding about the holocaust?

The book makes this terrible time in human history accessible to younger readers. People must never forget what happened or history repeats itself. The dehumanization of the Jews was an early stage of the Holocaust. Hitler vilified the Jews, progressively stripped them of their civil rights, and ultimately denied that they were even human -- thus were the Nazis able to try to exterminate the entire Jewish race. Max bitterly remarks that, as a Jew in Nazi Germany, a cold basement is the only place he deserves as he hides from persecution.