Auschwitz : The Nazis & The 'Final Solution'

I bought the book in 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 and all the other belongings of people that has suffered in 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 and disturbing read.

I have always thought that the people working in 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, and 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 and 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 happened in 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 people in 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 (0/0 people found this helpful)

found this book very intersting, it leaves you in disbelief on how cruel mankind can be, very well written with great detail.

A story simply told (0/0 people found this helpful)

There are few places in 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 response in 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 and preconceptions? One often used method is the "Hobsbawm" approach - the laying on of thick layers of detail, facts and 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 expression in 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 and producer of distinction and intelligence, has found a third way, a blend of hard facts and testimony that not only conveys the searing reality of the Final Solution (a term he points out was never actually used by the Nazis in 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 and how (God help us) we might be able to avoid doing it again. It's not an easy task and 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 and Primo Levi - that we all have it in us to commit atrocities, that self interest packaged as ideology is an intoxicating blend and that conformity can very often be the enemy of virtue.

SIMPLY BRILLIANT... (1/1 people found this helpful)

When one thinks of the labor and 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 and so inherently evil?

The author attempts to answer that question and succeeds in doing so brilliantly. This is a very well-written book that will appeal to those who are interested in the general human condition, as well as those interested in 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 and experiences of more than a hundred people are integrated throughout the narrative, which delves into the historical backdrop of the Nazi political machinery and its leadership. Survivors of Auschwitz, as well as Nazi perpetrators, tell of their experiences in the hell that was known as Auschwitz, and they tell it from their own unique perspectives. The symbiosis that often existed between prisoner and prison guard is quite unsettling, as are the attendant moral and 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 episodes in modern history and warfare. The author carefully delineates how the Nazis developed their reprehensible strategy for global genocide, and 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 Nazis in the final, waning days of World War II that was no less immoral than the ideological one.

This is simply a stunning and authoritative book by an author whose expertise in this area is undeniable. It is a comprehensive and insightful look at one of the most notorious death camps in the history of Nazi Germany. The author carefully explains the rise and fall of Auschwitz within the context of the Nazi mentality and ideology, as well as within the broader context of historical and military pragmatism. It is a devastating portrait, indeed, and with its sixteen pages of vintage black and white photographs, it is a book that will keep the reader riveted to its pages until the very last one is turned. Bravo!

A book everybody should read. (1/1 people found this helpful)

Auschwitz: The Nazis & The 'Final Solution' by Laurence Rees is an interesting but a very disturbing account of man's inhumanity to man. As a book it holds nothing back and deals with the myths surrounding this era. It is in my opinion a book that everyone should read because such things must never be allowed to happen again.

Auschwitz : The Nazis & The 'Final Solution'

Laurence Rees

Reader Reviews:

Terribly good (0/0 people found this helpful)

very interesting (0/0 people found this helpful)

A story simply told (0/0 people found this helpful)

SIMPLY BRILLIANT... (1/1 people found this helpful)

A book everybody should read. (1/1 people found this helpful)

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