We Were in Auschwitz

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic detailed presentation but unflowing
Review: I have read a decent amount of literature related to the Holocaust. Each book has been difficult, in its own right, to finish. However, an observation I realized with this particular book was that it is, in one word, choppy. The book was written by three different survivors of the Holocaust. Each of their stories well deserves to be read. However, the way it was formulated into this book makes it not flow. Each chapter has a different style of writing to it, since it was written by one of the three authors. Hence, that aspect made this book more difficult to get through. Once I got used to one man's style of writing, the next chapter was someone else's. I am not saying this is a bad book. On the contrare: what was written deserves to be read. However, this is not one book that you can just easily read to pass time. It needs to be sat down with and read carefully.

Rating:
Summary: A Guided Tour of "Hell" by Three of Its Survivors
Review: The reviewers of this book have done a masterful job. However, the paragraph on p.141 beginning, "We work beneath the earth and above it, under a roof and in the rain, with spade, the pickaxe and the crowbar." ... and ending with "Antiquity--the conspiracy of free men against slaves!" deserves reading and rereading, after which the next six paragraphs should be read slowly and thoughtfully.

Rating:
Summary: Not an uplifting read
Review: This book voices a strong opinion that I disagree with completely. It seems to exclaim that good cannot survive where evil is so overwhelming. There were, according to these survivors, no heroes at Auschwitz; those who did not die became "totally familiar with the inexplicable and the abnormal" and "learned to live on intimate terms with the crematoria." This book is not for those who choose to see survival in Auschwitz as a triumph of the human spirit. Anyone who claims that there were no heros of this tragedy has not read "Facing the Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Germany", in my opinion a much better written book and FAR more uplifting.