Auschwitz
A New History
New York : Public Affairs, 2005.
Format: Book
Edition: First U.S. edition.
Description: xxii, 327 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Auschwitz-Birkenau is the site of the largest mass murder in human history. Yet its story is not fully known. In Auschwitz , Laurence Rees reveals new insights from more than 100 original interviews with Auschwitz survivors and Nazi perpetrators who speak on the record for the first time. Their testimonies provide a portrait of the inner workings of the camp in unrivalled detail--from the techniques of mass murder, to the politics and gossip mill that turned between guards and prisoners, to the on-camp brothel in which the lines between those guards and prisoners became surprisingly blurred.
Rees examines the strategic decisions that led the Nazi leadership to prescribe Auschwitz as its primary site for the extinction of Europe's Jews--their "Final Solution." He concludes that many of the horrors that were perpetrated in Auschwitz were driven not just by ideological inevitability but as a "practical" response to a war in the East that had begun to go wrong for Germany. A terrible immoral pragmatism characterizes many of the decisions that determined what happened at Auschwitz. Thus the story of the camp becomes a morality tale, too, in which evil is shown to proceed in a series of deft, almost noiseless incremental steps until it produces the overwhelming horror of the industrial scale slaughter that was inflicted in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Rees examines the strategic decisions that led the Nazi leadership to prescribe Auschwitz as its primary site for the extinction of Europe's Jews--their "Final Solution." He concludes that many of the horrors that were perpetrated in Auschwitz were driven not just by ideological inevitability but as a "practical" response to a war in the East that had begun to go wrong for Germany. A terrible immoral pragmatism characterizes many of the decisions that determined what happened at Auschwitz. Thus the story of the camp becomes a morality tale, too, in which evil is shown to proceed in a series of deft, almost noiseless incremental steps until it produces the overwhelming horror of the industrial scale slaughter that was inflicted in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Subjects:
Auschwitz (Concentration camp) -- History.
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Poland.
Holocaust survivors -- Interviews.
War criminals -- Germany -- Interviews.
Auschwitz (Concentration camp) -- History.
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Poland.
Holocaust survivors -- Interviews.
War criminals -- Germany -- Interviews.
ISBN:
158648303X
Availability | |||
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Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
HISTORY War WWII Holocaust Ree | Sandhills Indoors | Nonfiction | In |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [301]-312) and index.