Reviews

At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities by Jean Améry, Stella P. Rosenfeld, Sidney Rosenfeld

gijs's review

4.0

The narrative is somewhat at a remove from the actual atrocities the author endured. In a more indirect manner, Amery reflects on his experiences in Nazi concentration (and death-) camps trying to convey the impossibility of distilling a meaning out of it all. Rather his focus is on his own reactions and resentments (non reactions) as a result of what happend to him, hoping the reader can relate, affiliate and contemplate the harrowing events for his- or herself. One of my favorite quotes: "The word always dies where the claim of some reality is total."

garleighc's review

3.0

Initially difficult to parse and sort of grandiose, this book quickly became a passionate and articulate discourse on how Jewish people reconcile the horrors of Auschwitz and the Holocaust. I'm so glad I read this; parts of what Amery explains as his Jewish identity are things I've never had to think about as a non-Jewish person. And it's not that long, either.