A review by marc129
At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities by Jean Amery

4.0

How naive was I to think that with Primo Levi's [b:If This Is a Man|275630|If This Is a Man|Primo Levi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327539197l/275630._SY75_.jpg|851110] the definitive holocaust book was written? That the most essential testimony of that horrible and unique experience was presented? This book by Jean Améry has thoroughly destroyed that intuitive feeling. And I don't mean that the author has more aptly described the horrors of Auschwitz and other hellish places. No, Améry only talks to a limited extent about his camp experiences. His unique contribution, is his lucid self-analysis about what that experience has done to him, and still does after 20 years, how it lives on in him, and has come to define his identity. I was particularly touched by the authentic way he put his feelings into words, very much aware of their ‘unreasonableness’ (his enduring resentment towards Germans, for example), but still sticking to them, even claiming the right to stick to them. Moreover, Améry is lucid enough to see that the Holocaust experience "will be buried under the formula 'a barbaric age'" along with so many other misdeeds of modern humanity, and that is indeed what happened. I know it sounds strange, as if there is a hierarchy in Holocaust testimonials, but with this book Améry has greatly outshone other fellow sufferers such as Elie Wiesel and Victor Frankl.