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Rating: 
Summary: Expectations can ignore reality
Review: Michael Ryan calls the book "cold". I have a large library of books on the Holocaust that look at through many eyes. Often the books by survivors are filled with emotion and facts as seen from a narrow view. A scientific study gives us the facts in as much detail as possible ON THE POINTS STUDIED. Read Hoess's autobiography for possibly the best understanding of the minds of many of the participants.
To Mr. Frantzman I would suggest that this book is 600 pages long, but certainly not ALL INCLUSIVE. I doubt that anyone could possibly write a single book (or a set within a rational time) that can deal "fairly" with every facit of the camp. My first book was the seminal "The Destruction of European Jewery" by Raul Hilberg who a few years ago I had a chance to meet and discuss issues. He said that it would take a library of books (which I have) to cover all the aspects of the Holocaust, and still we would only know ABOUT it. And he was right. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN DETAIL--BUT DON'T TRULY UNDERSTAND HOW A NATION COULD DO SUCH A THING. Aways there are the "insane"--but a NATION? But what about Pol Pot, Africa, etc. Even many of those who survived (and I have known a number) cannot stretch their minds to understand. And some of my friends were in the first batch of American soldiers to enter a camp, and to their deaths they could still FEEL (and have nightmares about)it--but not understand how it could happen.
Rating:
Summary: good, not entirely correct
Review: I liked this book. A compilation of many people this details every aspect of the famous death camp. From the design of the ovens to the lives of the women. Yet I think it is missing crucial information. It claims only 1.5 million died at the camp, I think this figure has been dispuited and is low. It also does not detail the resistance as I've understood it. Apparently in 1944 the Sonderkommando rebelled, leaving 70 S.S dead and wounded. In the chapter on resistance the author only says 3 S.S were killed. The reality is that Dr. Miklos confirms the data of 70 dead in his book 'Auschwitz: a Doctors eyewtiness account'. Now the reality is that the rebellion destroyed two cremetoria and that Miklos witnessed these events. I dont think the chapter on resistance focus's on this profoundly heroic act enough. The book is very detailed and examines all aspects of camp life. But I felt that it did not detail the crimes of the Nazi Doctors enough. I felt it glossed over the torture perpetrated on the guinea pigs(humans), Miklos glosses over it too but the reality is other accounts detail the horrors of the experiments. It also glosses over the treatment of women. It does not mention the rape of women(or men). But we know from accounts that during 'selections' many Jewish women were subjected to rape and barbarism. SO why does the book cover this up? I think these issues should have been addressed. But nevertheless this is a great book about the machinery of murder. It will make you wonder how it was all possible.
Rating:
Summary: good, not entirely correct
Review: I liked this book. A compilation of many people this details every aspect of the famous death camp. From the design of the ovens to the lives of the women. Yet I think it is missing crucial information. It claims only 1.5 million died at the camp, I think this figure has been dispuited and is low. It also does not detail the resistance as I've understood it. Apparently in 1944 the Sonderkommando rebelled, leaving 70 S.S dead and wounded. In the chapter on resistance the author only says 3 S.S were killed. The reality is that Dr. Miklos confirms the data of 70 dead in his book 'Auschwitz: a Doctors eyewtiness account'. Now the reality is that the rebellion destroyed two cremetoria and that Miklos witnessed these events. I dont think the chapter on resistance focus's on this profoundly heroic act enough. The book is very detailed and examines all aspects of camp life. But I felt that it did not detail the crimes of the Nazi Doctors enough. I felt it glossed over the torture perpetrated on the guinea pigs(humans), Miklos glosses over it too but the reality is other accounts detail the horrors of the experiments. It also glosses over the treatment of women. It does not mention the rape of women(or men). But we know from accounts that during 'selections' many Jewish women were subjected to rape and barbarism. SO why does the book cover this up? I think these issues should have been addressed. But nevertheless this is a great book about the machinery of murder. It will make you wonder how it was all possible.
Rating: 
Summary: cold autopsy
Review: I purchased this book along with BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA: The operation Reinhard Death Camps. I find it a cold study of what took place here. It does not give us any feeling about the people who operated this horrible place.
Other than a cold statistical study of the SS guards there is nothing. You don't get the feel of Hoess, Mengele, or Marie Mandel, or Irma Grese that the Reinhard book gives us of Globocnick, Stangle, and their vile ilk. Just as it does not give any real feeling for the millions of innocencts who were slaughtered here. It is a very informative work, but a cold autopsy of a hellish place.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic insight into how Auschwitz operated
Review: My visit to Auschwitz in July 2000 was made all the more incredible because I had read this book right before, and had an understanding of the camp's inner workings that the average visitor did not. With the stories I had read, and the things I knew about the personalities, barracks, gas chambers and crematoria... I was overwhelmed by the reality of it all when I was there. This was one of the best Amazon purchases I have ever made.
Rating:
Summary: Auschwitz laid bare.
Review: There have, of course, been many studies of Auschwitz. However, this is far and away the most comprehensive to appear. The many contributors cover the historical, sociological and psychological aspects in rigorous and scholarly style. This reviewer would pick out as particularly insightful Aleksander Lasik's analysis of the SS at the camp,whose numbers grew steadily as the war progressed,and Nathan Cohen for a gripping account of the diaries of the Sonderkommando which were found near the crematoria at Birkenau. Since the book is over 600 pages of closely argued text, it is in effect a work of reference. Fortunately, the index appears to be very good and following up subjects or characters is not difficult. There are, incidentally, two themes not really tracked here: holocaust revisionism debates nor Auschwitz as portrayed in the mass media. The editors, no doubt sensibly, have instead revealed what made Auschwitz tick and how perpetrators and victims related to their gruesome environment.
Rating:
Summary: A REVISIONIST'S NIGTHMARE
Review: This book contains several studies by different scholars, about the workings of the Auschwitz killing machine. Very well researched, it addresses different moral, legal, sociological and psychological issues about the people that worked (S.S. and Sonderkommando) and those who died in the camp. It also provides valuable insigths and enough documented information about Auschwitz's infrastructure, that clearly eliminates any possibility to deny the reality of this tragedy.
If you are a historian or a scholar of the Holocaust or the S.S, you should have this book in your library. If you are a Holocaust denier, you must read this book, with an open mind. Then, you will be able to perhaps move on, to deny Pol Pot's killing fields...
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