A review by teriboop
Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz by Thomas Harding
4.0
In Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz, Thomas Harding tells the story of his great-uncle Hanns Alexander, the man who investigated and captured Rudolf Höss, the SS Kommandant who was instrumental in building the crematoriums in Auschwitz. Harding alternates chapters that concentrate on each of these two very different men following the timeline from 1901 to 2006, from their childhoods to their deaths.
Thomas Harding never had the chance to talk with Hanns during his life time about this part of his life that forever changed him. Hanns began life in Germany as a Jew, narrowly escaping to England during WWII, joining the British Army. His time in the army led to his assignment tracking Nazi criminals post-war. It was during this assignment that Hanns found the man that was behind over 3 million deaths of Jews and political prisoners. After Hanns death in 2006, Harding researches both men and chronicles their separate lives that became intertwined at the close of the war.
The book was thoroughly engrossing, despite the tough and at times graphic nature of the subject. It is important to know this history, so that it is never repeated. This story helps the reader to understand the mindset of each man and to see how such an atrocity ever happened in the first place. Hanns spent his later years as a humble family man, not wanting to acknowledge the past or the hero that he was.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free through the History Book Club on Goodreads. Thank you, Simon and Schuster.
Thomas Harding never had the chance to talk with Hanns during his life time about this part of his life that forever changed him. Hanns began life in Germany as a Jew, narrowly escaping to England during WWII, joining the British Army. His time in the army led to his assignment tracking Nazi criminals post-war. It was during this assignment that Hanns found the man that was behind over 3 million deaths of Jews and political prisoners. After Hanns death in 2006, Harding researches both men and chronicles their separate lives that became intertwined at the close of the war.
The book was thoroughly engrossing, despite the tough and at times graphic nature of the subject. It is important to know this history, so that it is never repeated. This story helps the reader to understand the mindset of each man and to see how such an atrocity ever happened in the first place. Hanns spent his later years as a humble family man, not wanting to acknowledge the past or the hero that he was.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free through the History Book Club on Goodreads. Thank you, Simon and Schuster.