Customer Reviews
Excellent... but more pictures could be added - By: E. Freeman, 09 Nov 2008 
I visited auschwitz 6 months ago & decided that after my visit I would read a book on the subject to learn more about the camp. First of all, I would recommend anyone to go & visit the place because it is not the kind of place you would expect. On first glance it looks like a Butlins camp with the red brick blocks. It is not until you walk round a little more & go into each block that you really get to understand what awful things happen. I felt I was really able to appreciate the book because when the author was talking about the various blocks, gas chambers & the 'shooting wall' I had a clear image of what he was talking about having been to the place myself. For anyone who hadn't been there I felt images of the camp were lacking to give you a true idea of what the set up of the camp was like.
The interviews with survivors of prisoners & also SS guards were fantastic because it gave you a view from both perspectives. I did at times feel a little (and only a little) sympathy for the SS guards because they had grown up on propaganda & had been brainwashed that it was the Jews that had caused Germany to fall into such decline & the Jews had caused World War 1 but this should still not make the suffering & torture consideredin anyway acceptable.
I would have also liked the author to include a little bit of information about the camp today & what each of the blocks now contain regarding the museum just as a little extra for continued research that people could continue to learn about.
I would advise anyone to read this book, it is shocking that all these things happenedin my grandparents life times & the knowledge should be passed on & remembered.
I would also advise anyone to visit the Campin Poland to really experience & understand the book more, it only costs about £25 quid from Krakow & it is an experience you will never forget.
Terribly good - By: Kim Granly Hansen, 07 Aug 2008 
I bought the bookin one of the small bookshops at Auschwitz I, the main camp. I had just walked through the camp looking at the 2 tons of hair on display & all the other belongings of people that has sufferedin the camp. The sight is sickening, but it wasn't the big shock that I had expected. I thought: "Maybe I know too much about the place before coming here".
The horror came with this book. All the personal stories combined with the hard facts of the book makes an interesting & disturbing read.
I have always thought that the people workingin the Nazi camps were some kind of monsters or people that have been terrorized physically or mentally to become some kind of inhuman zombies. It turns out that most of them were quite ordinary people. This was the biggest eye-opener for me. For me it's just another reminder that we should never forget what happened here, & what human beings are capable of doing to each other.
Apart from my personal gain from this book, it is an excellent book for people to learn about the mass killings of the Nazis & the complex history of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is weel written and, as other reviewers have mentioned, you can't put it down once you have started to read it.
Being a Dane it is nice to read Mr. Rees' praise of what happenedin Denmark during the war. It is however with mixed emotions that I read it. I am not sure that the Danes would be so generous to Muslim peoplein case of an armed conflict with the middle east as some Danish people were to the Danish Jews during the second world war.
very interesting - By: gareth, 06 Aug 2008 found this book very intersting, it leaves youin disbelief on how cruel mankind can be, very well written with great detail.
A story simply told - By: Dr. Cath L. Murphy, 13 Jul 2008 There are few placesin the world that can tell their own story simply from the mention of their name. Hiroshima perhaps, Shangri La maybe (if it were a real place). Just the title of this book immediately evokes a responsein the reader. We know what we are going to be told before we scan the first page.
So how to approach a subject that carries with it such emotional baggage & preconceptions? One often used method is the "Hobsbawm" approach - the laying on of thick layers of detail, facts & figures, as if reciting the precise quantities of cruelty can somehow blunt the emotional reality of what happened. Another is the "reality TV" approach - the eye witness account, the loving reconstruction of just what it was really like to be an inmate, this time aiming for the opposite effect, the kind of simplistic overidentification that had a modern expressionin the aftermath of Diana's death. Heaven forbid they should start heaping bouquets at the end of this particular rail track...
But to return to the subject, Laurence Rees, a writer & producer of distinction & intelligence, has found a third way, a blend of hard facts & testimony that not only conveys the searing reality of the Final Solution (a term he points out was never actually used by the Nazisin the way it is now) but also distances itself enough to allow important conclusions to be drawn about how this abomination was allowed to happen & how (God help us) we might be able to avoid doing it again. It's not an easy task & some people might feel that it's too light a read for so heavy a subject, but don't be fooled: Rees has an eye for the devastating detail that carries more weight than a thousand numbers can. We all know about the heaps of glasses, the mountains of shoes. Rees find a more telling example: the silent funereal procession of baby carriages that were removed during a warehouse clearout. According to one prisoner, it took an hour to wheel them all by.
From this, Rees draws the lessons that begin to emerge from the testimonies of the most talented of the Holocaust witnesses - people like Bruno Bettelheim & Primo Levi - that we all have itin us to commit atrocities, that self interest packaged as ideology is an intoxicating blend & that conformity can very often be the enemy of virtue.
SIMPLY BRILLIANT... - By: Lawyeraau, 19 Jun 2008 When one thinks of the labor & death camps instituted by the Nazis during World War II, the notorious concentration camp at Auschwitz comes immediately to mind. One cannot help but wonder what kind of mindset would devise such an infamy. How could Germany, a nation that was noted for its richness of culture, have devised a plan of genocide that was so far reaching & so inherently evil?
The author attempts to answer that question & succeedsin doing so brilliantly. This is a very well-written book that will appeal to those who are interestedin the general human condition, as well as those interestedin the holocaust itself. It is scholarly, yet, at the same time, immensely readable. This is because the author has put a very human face on the dreaded death camp of Auschwitz. The stories & experiences of more than a hundred people are integrated throughout the narrative, which delves into the historical backdrop of the Nazi political machinery & its leadership. Survivors of Auschwitz, as well as Nazi perpetrators, tell of their experiencesin the hell that was known as Auschwitz, & they tell it from their own unique perspectives. The symbiosis that often existed between prisoner & prison guard is quite unsettling, as are the attendant moral & ethical issues.
The author attempts to help the reader understand how it was that the "final solution" came about. It is an unsentimental, intellectually objective, critical analysis of one of the most infamous episodesin modern history & warfare. The author carefully delineates how the Nazis developed their reprehensible strategy for global genocide, & how it came about being implemented. The creation of Auschwitz was crucial to the Nazis' desire to rid itself of Europe's Jewish population but, however, that desire may not have been entirely ideologically driven. From his extensive research, the author postulates that there may have been a practical, more pragmatic component that dictated the actions of the Nazisin the final, waning days of World War II that was no less immoral than the ideological one.
This is simply a stunning & authoritative book by an author whose expertisein this area is undeniable. It is a comprehensive & insightful look at one of the most notorious death campsin the history of Nazi Germany. The author carefully explains the rise & fall of Auschwitz within the context of the Nazi mentality & ideology, as well as within the broader context of historical & military pragmatism. It is a devastating portrait, indeed, & with its sixteen pages of vintage black & white photographs, it is a book that will keep the reader riveted to its pages until the very last one is turned. Bravo!
