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4.58 AVERAGE
4.58 AVERAGE
An important work of scholarship utilizing hundreds of sources to document the rise and fall of the concentration camps, this book was a revelation in many ways to me. The proto-KL began in 1933 and was far more dynamic and varied than popular historical memory reveals.
This is also a genuinely horrifying book to read - both the treatment of the prisoners and the realization that most people involved were normal, i.e. not psychopathic sadists. The meticulous documentation of prisoner treatment and SS culture and training is brutal, but also helped explain to me how ordinary humans could do such awful things.
This is also a genuinely horrifying book to read - both the treatment of the prisoners and the realization that most people involved were normal, i.e. not psychopathic sadists. The meticulous documentation of prisoner treatment and SS culture and training is brutal, but also helped explain to me how ordinary humans could do such awful things.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
This was a comprehensive history of the KL and the many different people who were victims of it. I appreciated that the author took the time in the epilogue to state that perceptions of the KL have changed over time and will continue to do so, citing examples in various countries. Very well done
5 Stars for sure! Everyone should read this book. It’s extremely knowledgeable. I learned info I hadn’t known before!!!
emotional
informative
reflective
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
This is an outstanding book, telling a horrific story with care, respect, and nuance. It is clearly informed by huge amounts of research, but is still told in an accessible way. It's obviously a very difficult subject and, personally speaking, I needed to read it slowly as a consequence, but I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Excrement, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicide
Nikolaus Wachsmann deserves our utmost respect for writing this book. It mustn't have been easy in any way. Its style, while certainly academic and exhaustively researched and cited, makes a for a fluid and enjoyable (if that's the right word given the subject matter) read. More importantly, his manner of engaging the horrific material is brutally honest and without hyperbole. The victims and survivors of the KL deserve this book and the guilty parties deserve to have their deeds and atrocities remembered for eternity.
Given the re-emeregnce of nationalism over the past several years in liberal democracies, this book is a timely reminder of how nationalism can be exploited and and abused for nefarious ends. I would recommend Donald Trump read this book so that he might recognize his rhetorical tendencies and see where they can lead given the right circumstances. However, that would require him to be an intellectually engaged person open to ideas and one who is rich in empathy.
Given the re-emeregnce of nationalism over the past several years in liberal democracies, this book is a timely reminder of how nationalism can be exploited and and abused for nefarious ends. I would recommend Donald Trump read this book so that he might recognize his rhetorical tendencies and see where they can lead given the right circumstances. However, that would require him to be an intellectually engaged person open to ideas and one who is rich in empathy.
Wachsmann came to the fore with a book on a more neglected sector of the Nazi penal universe: regular prisons and prison camps*. At the time of release (2004) his next work-in-progress was already announced by the publisher. A decade in the making, would this be "the new standard" for concentration camp studies? I dare say it is.
He uses this prior knowledge to good effect in tracing out the haphazard existence of the KL system. It goes past the troika of pure death camps (Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor) and while Auschwitz inevitably retains a dominant position in the narrative, it shares in the deconstruction of popular mythology. This goes as far as correcting minor points of Hilberg's monumental trilogy through recent scholarship**.
The net result is a history of the camp system that is defined by the indecisiveness and uncertainty of a mysantropic chaos theory. The origins of the Holocaust are too complex to explain even by an expert. You can only work with transition periods, not defining moments. Largely because there WAS no singular masterplan; the SS were half making it up as they went along. To begin with, the very existence of camps was uncertain after the first year of Nazi rule. Once the improvised torture basements of the SA were sweeped clean and their former wardens neutered, the new regime felt consolidated enough to consider a minimalist prison system. Nor was the Wannsee conference the clear-cut starting point of industrialised genocide. The mass extermination of Sovjet POWs by prussian acid (a familiar delouser) was developped just in time (autumn/winter '41) to coincide with the planning. A few months later, the tide of war perceptively turned at Stalingrad and the army's manpower demands turned foreign workers vital to keep the workforce on the Home Front up to strength. Should anihiliation through labour continue indiscriminately, or were skilled Jewish workers to make a productive contribution to the war economy as the fortunes of battle waned ? The dilemma was never resolved, but there was always room for guinea pigs and camp brothels as poorly chosen incentives (malnutrition kills the libido in men as effectively as it does menstruation in women).
The sum amounts to a KZ Bible, supplemented by the equally voluminous publication by Casarani of the same year and Friedländers two volumes***, that encompass the pre-war persecution and the Einsatzgruppen.
Bibliography
*[bc:Hitler's Gevangenissen : de rechtsorde in nazi-Duitsland|25133582|Hitler's Gevangenissen de rechtsorde in nazi-Duitsland|Nikolaus Wachsmann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1426246063s/25133582.jpg|1045125][b:Hitler’s Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany|1058552|Hitler’s Prisons Legal Terror in Nazi Germany|Nikolaus Wachsmann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347740209s/1058552.jpg|1045125]
**[bc:La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|1800066|La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1188516406s/1800066.jpg|1799209][b:La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|1800066|La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1188516406s/1800066.jpg|1799209] by [ai:Raul Hilberg|114185|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1425992012p2/114185.jpg][a:Raul Hilberg|114185|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1425992012p2/114185.jpg]
***[bc:Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|25628500|Final Solution The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432948575s/25628500.jpg|25142255] [b:Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|25628500|Final Solution The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432948575s/25628500.jpg|25142255] by [ai:David Cesarani|31521|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499121081p2/31521.jpg][a:David Cesarani|31521|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499121081p2/31521.jpg]
[bc:Nazi-Duitsland en de Joden. Deel1 De jaren van vervolging 1933-1939. Deel 2 De jaren van vernietiging 1939-1945|18690487|Nazi-Duitsland en de Joden. Deel1 De jaren van vervolging 1933-1939. Deel 2 De jaren van vernietiging 1939-1945|Saul Friedländer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1382261522s/18690487.jpg|4365449][b:Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939|1220615|Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1 The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939|Saul Friedländer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1182000622s/1220615.jpg|1209096] & [b:Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945|692474|Nazi Germany and the Jews The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945|Saul Friedländer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347342696s/692474.jpg|678812] by [a:Saul Friedländer|480589|Saul Friedländer|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]
He uses this prior knowledge to good effect in tracing out the haphazard existence of the KL system. It goes past the troika of pure death camps (Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor) and while Auschwitz inevitably retains a dominant position in the narrative, it shares in the deconstruction of popular mythology. This goes as far as correcting minor points of Hilberg's monumental trilogy through recent scholarship**.
The net result is a history of the camp system that is defined by the indecisiveness and uncertainty of a mysantropic chaos theory. The origins of the Holocaust are too complex to explain even by an expert. You can only work with transition periods, not defining moments. Largely because there WAS no singular masterplan; the SS were half making it up as they went along. To begin with, the very existence of camps was uncertain after the first year of Nazi rule. Once the improvised torture basements of the SA were sweeped clean and their former wardens neutered, the new regime felt consolidated enough to consider a minimalist prison system. Nor was the Wannsee conference the clear-cut starting point of industrialised genocide. The mass extermination of Sovjet POWs by prussian acid (a familiar delouser) was developped just in time (autumn/winter '41) to coincide with the planning. A few months later, the tide of war perceptively turned at Stalingrad and the army's manpower demands turned foreign workers vital to keep the workforce on the Home Front up to strength. Should anihiliation through labour continue indiscriminately, or were skilled Jewish workers to make a productive contribution to the war economy as the fortunes of battle waned ? The dilemma was never resolved, but there was always room for guinea pigs and camp brothels as poorly chosen incentives (malnutrition kills the libido in men as effectively as it does menstruation in women).
The sum amounts to a KZ Bible, supplemented by the equally voluminous publication by Casarani of the same year and Friedländers two volumes***, that encompass the pre-war persecution and the Einsatzgruppen.
Bibliography
*[bc:Hitler's Gevangenissen : de rechtsorde in nazi-Duitsland|25133582|Hitler's Gevangenissen de rechtsorde in nazi-Duitsland|Nikolaus Wachsmann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1426246063s/25133582.jpg|1045125][b:Hitler’s Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany|1058552|Hitler’s Prisons Legal Terror in Nazi Germany|Nikolaus Wachsmann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347740209s/1058552.jpg|1045125]
**[bc:La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|1800066|La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1188516406s/1800066.jpg|1799209][b:La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|1800066|La Destruction Des Juifs D'europe|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1188516406s/1800066.jpg|1799209] by [ai:Raul Hilberg|114185|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1425992012p2/114185.jpg][a:Raul Hilberg|114185|Raul Hilberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1425992012p2/114185.jpg]
***[bc:Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|25628500|Final Solution The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432948575s/25628500.jpg|25142255] [b:Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|25628500|Final Solution The Fate of the Jews 1933-49|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432948575s/25628500.jpg|25142255] by [ai:David Cesarani|31521|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499121081p2/31521.jpg][a:David Cesarani|31521|David Cesarani|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1499121081p2/31521.jpg]
[bc:Nazi-Duitsland en de Joden. Deel1 De jaren van vervolging 1933-1939. Deel 2 De jaren van vernietiging 1939-1945|18690487|Nazi-Duitsland en de Joden. Deel1 De jaren van vervolging 1933-1939. Deel 2 De jaren van vernietiging 1939-1945|Saul Friedländer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1382261522s/18690487.jpg|4365449][b:Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939|1220615|Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1 The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939|Saul Friedländer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1182000622s/1220615.jpg|1209096] & [b:Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945|692474|Nazi Germany and the Jews The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945|Saul Friedländer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347342696s/692474.jpg|678812] by [a:Saul Friedländer|480589|Saul Friedländer|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]
informative
medium-paced