kjack99's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
4.5
I didn’t care for the victim-shaming foreword, which was not written by Dr. Miklos, but the rest of the book was very informative, eye-opening, and heart wrenching.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Hate crime, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Police brutality, Torture, War, Gore, Genocide, Medical content, Physical abuse, Child death, Death, Ableism, Alcohol, Body horror, Child abuse, Violence, Antisemitism, and Confinement
Moderate: Suicide and Alcoholism
shan198025's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. Most of the things written about were things I'd heard about previously. It still is shocking reading it in 2013, but I can't imagine what it was like reading about it when the book was first published in 1946. The man who wrote the introduction made me kinda upset, implying the Jews (and Gypsies and Czechs I'll assume) brought this on themselves. This upset me. That is on par with the Holocust deniers. And why we should never forget.
sfletcher26's review against another edition
5.0
A brutally honest telling of the inhumanity of man by a man who its hard to feel completely sympathetic to. It is however a book, like that of Primo Levi's, should be read by all.
moogen's review against another edition
4.0
Not a book you read for pleasure... but it deserves to be read.
abrswf's review against another edition
4.0
I have very mixed feelings about this book. I could not disagree more with the thesis by Bruno Bettelheim, who wrote a prologue, that blame attaches to Holocaust victims for failing to fight back or allowing themselves to be murdered. I deeply dislike victim blaming and it's obscene in this context. But -- I also really disliked the pompous, self-satisfied smug author of this book. I'm quite sure he engaged in much more collaborative behavior than be discloses. He was basically Mengele’s pampered henchman. Secondly, I question the factual accuracy of quite a bit of what he reports. Other witnesses, for example, consistently report that the liquidation of the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz was a bloody multi-day mess because the Gypsies fought fiercely -- he says it was quiet, orderly, and brief. Details like that which seem off or downright wrong make me wonder about other incidents and operating procedures he describes, which aren't reflected by anything I've read in other survivor accounts. One star off. And: read without complete credulity.
vishnu_'s review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.5