Oswiecim Favorites

Favorite thing: I borrowed the book Schindlers Ark by Thomas Keneally and bought the DVD as well. I visited the Schindler factory whilst in Krakow. The power of this movie is to show that there were Germans that were championed as heros amongst the Jews, people who could have been heavily prosecuted for showing mercy to what the nazis viewed an inferior people. Everytime I watch this film I find myself crying.

Favorite thing: Primo Levi was an Italian Jew transported to Auschwitz in Feb 1944, he recounts his experiences. Out of 650 Italian Jews transported to Auschwitz only 20 were left alive at the time of the liberation.

Favorite thing: My housemate had an old copy of this book the doctor was Miklos Nyiszli who as a Jewish medical doctor with some experience of pathology saved himself from sure death to work for Josef Mengele in a job which provided a grim outlook. Nyiszli worked with the 12th Sonderkommando performing autopsies and scientific research on his fellow inmates this book is very explicit and detailed and it made me feel as though this doctor may have favoured death if he knew what fate had in sore for him.

Miklos Nyiszli was able to save his wife and daughter from extermination, he himself spent 12 months in Auschwitz and was taken on the death march surviving to tell his tale. There is some debate on the internet as to exactly how truthful the contents of this book are but nonetheless it is a harrowing story.

Favorite thing: Another book I read was Children of Flames - Dr Mengele and the untold story of the twins by Lucette Matalon Lagnadu.

Of some 3,000 twins that were sent to Auschwitz, only 160 of them survived. Fifty years after the liberation the story of the twin survivors unfolded. Josef Mengele was in charge of selection process at Auschwitz and his desire to create an Aryan race gave rise to his special interest in twins on whom he planned to do his genetic research.

The twins were stationed not fab away from the gas chambers where probably most of their family were sent immediatly. These twins were given special privleges by Mengele and many give accounts in their interviews of this Angel of Death being a smiling uncle Mengele who provided them with extra clothes and even candy. The twins were driven to his laboratory in a red cross van and after some painful experiments were showered with candy as if to make them forget what they had just gome through.

Interwoven into the interviews of these twin survivors is the biography of Mengele, his family background, his wartime work experience and later his escape and hiding in South America. After reading this book I found it hard to understand how he evaded capture as he was even as blatant to return to his orginal name and even back to germany. The twins still maintain that the remains found in Brazil of the Angel of Death are not his and that it only proves that this man has yet again suceeded in tricking the world into believing the monster is finally dead.

The book by Ira Levin and movie the Boys from Brazil tells of how Josef Mengele evaded capture.

Favorite thing: I read this book by Laurence Rees, which was also a BBC television series. The book is made up of over a hundred interviews of both survivors and perpatrators.

It details the fact that Auschwitz was not simply a death camp, it was seen to be a profit making concern and the german industry did indeed profit over the years. Laurence Rees makes you see how the killing at Auschwitz was treated as a prodution line of death. Ruldoph Hoss the man in charge worked out the most cost effective way of killing in great volumes and disposing of the remains.

The trials of men such as Adolph Eichmenn, the man in charge of the final solution, are detailed in the book and theme of following orders and could not be held accountable comes through strongly in the trials of these nazis.

Favorite thing: Although this place is a horrid place it bears a great hope:

by visiting it and finding out about the brutal and inhuman things that happened here - there is only one solution:

it is our responsibilty to make sure that

this must never ever happen again
- no matter where!

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Fondest memory: Inside the barracks there are exhibitions on life and death in this concentration camp. Depending on when you go visit you will have many guided tours there and you might want to listen to some of their explainations - or you just read the information from the little guide-book.

Be prepared to see things that really get to you - this definitely is the most difficult place to visit!

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Fondest memory: The premises of the concentration camp you find a guided walk that leads you along the barracks (numbered 1 - 30 or even more), the hospital, the crematorium, the fences, towers and drill ground.

Inside the first barracks (1-15) you will find the official museum with exhibitions of life and death in the concentration camp and in the other barracks (from 16 on) you will have exhibitions from the different countries and nationalities that bemoan their dead in various more or less artistic exhibitions.