[Colosis]

Any comments appreciated.

[ripley]

viktor frankl. man's search for meaning

[Guenevere]

Night..by Elie Wiesel is one of the most powerful little books I've ever read on this subject.

A must read!

[Guenevere]

Actually, Wiesel was in Buchenwald Concentration Camp...

..but if you don't need a specific camp, I fully believe the larger known ones, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbruck....were very similar.

Another powerful book is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom...she was in Ravensbruck.

[Guenevere]

My mistake....Wiesel was at Auschwitz, and I believe a few more, as well.

[mmanager]

I visited Auschwitz / Berkenau four months ago. One good feel the evil still present at the sites. As you probably know, Auschwitz was a camp built before the Germans invaded Poland, Berkenau was built for the final solution of the Jews. Berkenau was a very small village that the Nazi's razed and then built the camp.

When on tour, I asked our Polish guide didn't the locals know what was going on? She very sharply pointed out that Oswiecim (Polish name of town) was commandeered by the Nazi's and renamed Aushwitz (German). The Nazi's then began building the final solution to the Jewish "issue" by ordering a 40 Kilometer buffer zone around the camps. Meaning that no one associated with the camps could live in the area. The Germans occupied the original houses in Oswiecim and threw out the inhabitants.

Back to your question on "Best Book". I've read quite a bit on the camps and if you have visited, the best book is between your ears. It was the most moving moments of my life. The seven tons of hair, the prosthetics that were salvaged, eye glasses and shoes displayed at Auschwitz along with standing on the ashes of humanity at Birkenaus two crematoria's is better than any book I could have read.

The only positive aspect I got out of the tour was the thousands of people that were there that day including grade school children. My hope is that through this education history will not repeat itself. I feel that in today's world, I am wrong.

I wish I knew HTML, I have some great pic's that I would love to share with other FReepers. Anyone wish to share a quick "do this to post pic's"?

[Misschuck]

Martin Gilbert

[raybbr]

What an emotional place that is. It didn't really hit me till I saw paperwork from a Gym teacher, born in Chicago, that was killed there. My father was born in Chicago and went to visit relatives in Poland in 1937. He didn't get back till 1947.

When I was there they sold a book on site called "Auschwitz; As seen by the SS". It was diaries from the original camp commander, a camp doctor and a coporal in the SS. It was astounding to read. Info here.

Is the place being kept up. When I was there they were talking about how they were running out of money to maintain it.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

According to the leader of Iran, its all a lie. And, even if some jews were killed, he says that if Europe felt so guilty about letting all the jews be murdered, why didn't europe give the jews a homeland in europe rather than palestinian land?

This is a guy we almost gave a visa to come to New York and bad mouth Ameria.

[redwhit]

Primo Levi, "Survival at Auschwitz"

[Esther Ruth]

Ping for your lists to add recommended books to this thread?

[bmwcyle]

bttt

[Howard Jarvis Admirer]

I read Primo Levy's book - he described the cold and lack of food towards the end of the war - (when the supply of food failed, possibly due to allied bombing of the railways) He also was very careful to separate what he himself saw from the gossip he heard about gas chambers - according to Levy, he saw only one execution, that of a prisoner who attempted to commit arson by setting a fire in a workshop. The prisoners were suffering from starvation and typhus towards the end and he felt lucky to have survived - recommend his book.

[Paved Paradise]

I've read numerous great books, many of which have already been suggested, but I saw a fantastic movie the other day (it's not new)called "Out of the Ashes." It is about Giselle Perl, a Hungarian physician who ended up working with Dr. Mengele in a minor capacity (of course she had no choice).

I sobbed through about half of this movie. Dr. Perl is now dead but her story is well worth knowing.

So many people forget about the horrible experiments done by Mengele and I believe this part of history must never be forgotten either.

[Halgr]

My Father was with Patton in WW2. He brought home photographs of several of the camps.

I still have them in the family scrapbook.

There were pictures of incredibly emaciated bodies stacked like cordwood by the hundreds.

There were pictures of rooms stacked to the ceilings with rings, bracelets and necklaces.

I will never doubt the Holocaust.

[Jim Noble]

Well, you do need to read Night, but it will not further your understanding.

After you read Night, you need about five years to get over it, and then you can start to think about it again.

[Clemenza]

Primo Levi's book does it for me. Yet another poor soul who thought that his Italian neighbors would "protect him."

[Salem]

"Best book on Auschwitz??"

Although Elie Wiesel's NIGHT is one of the "big dogs" on the block of Holocaust history, I also recommend The Holocaust Chronicle for its extensive research (thick as a phone book), as well as the whole book being posted online. It has numerous pictures I don't think you will see anywhere else.

•The Holocaust Chronicle Online•

---

If you'd like to be on or off this
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please FR mail me ~
    

There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had
spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)
Letter To The President In Support Of Israel ~
'Final Solution,' Phase 2 ~
Warnings ~
The Nature Of Bruce ~

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...."—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Holocaust Chronicle ~



" ... It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world."—FReeper Retief
"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."—FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."—FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"—Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."

[dighton]

Memory of the Camps

A supplement to reading, powerful in its own right. Footage from 1945, of Dachau, Buchenwald, Belsen, and other camps, narrated by Trevor Howard. Be warned of disturbing content.