Product Description

This work offers a shattering account of an Auschwitz prisoner who worked for more than two years in the gassing installations and crematoria and lived to tell about it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7498 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

Slave to the murder machinery that was Auschwitz-Birkenau
Filip Muller was a memebr of the Sonderkommado at Auschwitz-Birkenau, responsible for the disposal of the corpses after death by gassing. Having first seen "Shoah" (the epic Claude Lanzmann Documentary)where Filip Muller explains his experiences at Auschwitz-Birkenau (admittedly edited in length), it was most interesting to read his book to obtain the true picture of his suffering.
Having actually been to Auschwitz-Birkenau and read extesnively around the subject, it is still a deeply moving & disturbing when you read what actually happened there. As a third person, it is very interesting to read an account like this, as it actually puts you very vividly into that envrionment.
This book is thoroughly recommended - it captures all that is so very wrong in the human spirit - hatred, bigotry, prejudice - and yet all that is so very right in the human spirit - courage, determination & an extraordinary will to survive & bear witness to humanity's greatest crime.

another remarkable survival story
I have read a great amount of accounts by holocaust survivers. They all are remarkable, and all add somthing to the history we should never forget.

This book deals in considerable depth with the practicalities of the mass murders, the gas chambers and crematoria. As so few of the Sonderkommando survived to bear witness, Mullers account bears added importance.

One of the most remarkable things about this book is the simple matter-of-fact way in which Muller relates his account. Almost as if he were talking about some 9 to 5 factory job. What really comes across is how the Nazis dehumanised those in their charge to perform these tasks, but still those like Muller somehow survived and came out the other side.

The acceptance of unimaginable horror
A compelling account, written in a sparse, matter-of-fact style that illustrates how human beings can accept and adapt to the most horrific conditions and maintain the will to survive. It is the determination to report the monstrous crimes he has witnessed that keeps the author going. His choices are stark - collaborate in the murder of thousands of innocent people or die. He also has to face the terrible fact that he is 'safest' (a relative term for an Auschwitz prisoner) when the exterminations are at their height - as the war draws to a close, and the gasings abate, his situation becomes more perilous.
This is a shocking read, but also an essential read. Terms like 'gas chamber' and 'crematoria' trip off the tongue of every teenage history student too easily, with little appreciation of their ghastly reality.