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"One day as we were passing a column of Jewish people from Hungary, our labour gang halted for a while. During this short pause I found myself close to a young married couple, the mother holding an infant in her arms. It was crying. The father looked at his watch, then at a straw basket from which a baby's bottle projected. He asked us, the "locals" whether it was far to the work camp and the barracks of the Jewish settlement at Birkenau, as if it was almost the child's feeding time. They had only a few yards to go to the gas chambers. No one answered his question."

I try to read at least one Holocaust memoir every year. It seems the least I can do considering what these people had to go through to write these books. Of course, you always have to be prepared to hear about unimaginable awful things, a life so unbearable it's hard to imagine how anyone got through it. On the other hand, you also learn about the resourcefulness, generosity and courage of the human spirit. So, it's not by any means all demoralising. There's often much in these accounts that celebrates the human spirit in a manner that is more moving than anything in fictional literature. We see the worst of what human beings are capable of but we also see the best in many ways.

The author was twelve when she arrived at her first concentration camp. In the confusion of arrival, she lost her mother. Only when she was in the barracks did she realise her mother was no longer with her. Her mother had failed the selection.

Halina Birenbaum writes of her experiences in the death camps of Majdanek, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck and NeustadtGlewe in a very simple direct style. Unlike more intellectual authors she doesn't shy away from details about personal hygiene and sanitary conditions which make you realise how these people lived in a constant state of humiliation. Even at night when the Nazis were not to be seen they had to endure experiences which would severely test the spirit. Add to that the cruelty of some fellow inmates.

One fascinating detail was the behaviour of the camp guards and commandant when they realised the war was almost over. They gave the prisoners food parcels and politely called for order. It was like the effects of a hallucinogenic drug had worn off and these monsters suddenly became human beings again. Halina talks of the euphoria of shoving aside one of these monsters who had tormented her every day to get to the food and I shared her euphoria.

mariags_00's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.0

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