POLAND: BOOKS ABOUT AUSCHWITZ

There are SO MANY books about Auschwitz: fiction, memoir, and historical. I think most people have probably read at least one. Here are a few that I have read within the last few years. If you have another one that you found insightful and worth reading, please leave the name of the book in the comments.

Man's Search for Meaning 
by Viktor Frankl
Perhaps the first significant book written about Auschwitz, this book was published in 1946 and is considered one of the most influential books of the 20th century. I first read this book when I was in high school, and while some of the deep psychological underpinnings of the second half of the book escaped me then, I nevertheless had a profound experience as I read about Frankl's experiences as detailed in the first half of the book. The older I get, the more meaningful his discussion of choosing one's response to suffering becomes.

My favorite quote from the book is this: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."



Survival in Auschwitz 
by Primo Levi

I knew of Primo Levi, but I had never read his famous  book about his experiences in Auschwitz until after I returned from our trip to Poland.

Published in 1947, this book is very different than Man’s Search for Meaning. Levi was an Italian chemist and a Jew who was deported to Auschwitz in February 1944. Of the 650 people in his transport, only 20 were still alive when the Red Army liberated the camp 10 months later. This is perhaps the most depressing book about Auschwitz that I have read. Levi lived ten months in Auschwitz and doesn’t hold back, doesn’t try to gloss over the evil that existed in the camp, and doesn’t paint his fellow prisoners in a very good light. This is not an inspirational story of grit and ultimate triumph. He emphasizes that those who survived were cunning, smart, and tenacious.  He focuses on the monotonous pace of life in the camp, punctuated by acts of evil violence. One of the things he writes about that I hadn’t thought about was the problems caused by lack of a common language. The camps were full of people from all over Europe who couldn’t speak each other’s language, much less German.

A quote that I think captures the tone of the book: "Today I think that if for no other reason that an Auschwitz existed, no one in our age should speak of Providence." 

The Librarian of Auschwitz 
by Antonio Iturbe

Dita Krause, a young girl imprisoned in Auschwitz, is given charge over eight books that must be hidden from camp guards. Sometimes this book seemed like every other book about Auschwitz and I got a little bored, but other parts of the story were incredibly gripping, detailed, and unique. In the end, I suppose that’s how life in a concentration camp was—sometimes the days must have dragged on mercilessly, only to be interrupted by acts of unimaginable horror. More than some books about Auschwitz (although not on the level of Primo Levi's book), I felt this one did not overly trivialize the conditions and events in the camp, although some of the relationships did seem to be a bit romanticized.

Dita lives in the so-called “family camp,” a place created for propaganda purposes, but where school is forbidden. Nevertheless, there is an underground school, and the books are carefully circulated. Based on the memories of an actual prisoner, the book is translated from its original Spanish text. The characters are well-drawn, the plot is unfortunately believable, and the true horrors of Auschwitz, and later Bergen-Belsen to which Dita is transferred, are clearly outlined.


The Tattooist of Auschwitz 
by Heather Morris
Although this book is classified as historical fiction, it is based on the author's interviews with Lali Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, whose assignment as a prisoner at Auschwitz was to tattoo identification numbers onto the forearms of thousands of incoming prisoners. While at the camp he meets a girl name Gita, a girl who refuses to tell him her last name or where she is from, and with whom he falls madly in love. Both Lali and Gita remain in the camp for 1 1/2 years, and during that time they experience many horrors, but Lali is also in a position to help many of his fellow prisoners. I can't give away what ultimately happens to the lovers, so you'll have to read it yourself.

The author interviewed Sokolov over a period of several years before he died in 2006. Her novel, which is based on those interviews, was published in 2018 and became an instant best seller. It is a very engaging read with memorable characters, although sometimes the plot twists feel a bit unbelievable and overall maybe a little rosy compared to most of the other books I've read. Overall, however, it is a good description of camp life, particularly of the interaction between Auschwitz I (the main camp) and Birkenau.


Born Survivors 
by Wendy Holden
I have read a lot of books about World War II, especially books about the Jews and concentration camps, but other than The Book Thief, I think this one tops the list for me. When the author, Wendy Holden, heard of a baby who was born in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, she began researching the story. Ultimately she discovered THREE babies who were born in the camp or on the way to the camp in May 1945

The stories of these three mothers and babies are agonizing, horrifying, humbling, and inspiring. All three babies and all three mothers survived, but none of the mothers knew of the other two mothers for fifty years! The women also spent time in Auschwitz and Freiberg, Germany (the latter being a work camp, not a death camp). I could not put this book down, and I wept through the last 75 pages or so, particularly the part about the liberation of the camp.

I included this book in my post about Mauthausen, but it is also a good book to read in connection with a visit to Auschwitz.

The Choice: Embrace the Impossible

by Dr. Edith Eva Eger

This book has three parts: the author’s childhood and time spent in Auschwitz and Mauthasen Concentration Camps, the building of her life afterwards, including marriage, family, and education, and the application of what she learned through her varied experiences to her practice as a clinical psychologist. 

Eger was a disciple of Viktor Frankl, whose story she discovered in the 1950s when a fellow student gave it to her. Her therapy is based on a version of his “choice therapy,” the idea that we cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond.  

I have read many books on life in Auschwitz, and Dr. Eger talks about her experiences, but as a foundation for what comes later. I found the last third of her book to be the most interesting—seeing how that idea of control can actually play out in individual lives.  Fascinating and thought-provoking.

A BOOK ON MY NIGHTSTAND THAT I STILL NEED TO READ:

Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz 
by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel
Among the thousands of people Doctor Josef Mengele conducted his horrible medical experiments on were 3,000 twins. Only 160 of those twins survived the war. This book alternates between being a biography of Mengele's life and interviews with the surviving twins.