I have written more than once that the topic of the Holocaust is very important to me. I’m certain this is directly tied to the fact that the extermination of Jews during World War II personally affected my family. But this is also an example of something people must never forget so that it never happens again.
The book Auschwitz by Laurence Rees didn’t exactly fall into my hands by chance; modern algorithms recommended it to me because I had read other books on this topic. Until that day, however, I knew nothing about the author. Laurence Rees is a British historian who has devoted much of his career to studying Nazism, its causes, and its rise. Auschwitz: The Nazis & the Final Solution is just one of his books, in which he attempts to explain not only the history of one of the most infamous death camps but also the development of such a horrific concept as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
Before I share my thoughts on the book, I’d like to quote the author’s own words with which he concludes the book. I couldn’t put it better myself (I have read the book in Russian and couldn’t find the original quote so here I place the back translation from Russian, sorry):
Soon, the last surviving person and the last perpetrator from Auschwitz will join those who were killed in the camp. And when that happens, there will be no one left on this earth who was there during the war. When this occurs, there’s a danger that this story will fade into the past and become just another terrible event among many. After all, horrifying atrocities have happened before: from the massacre of Muslims in Acre by Richard the Lionheart during the Crusades to the genocide by Genghis Khan in Persia. Future generations may begin to view Auschwitz in the same way—simply as another fact from history, a tragic event that occurred beyond living memory. But we cannot allow that to happen. We must judge human behavior in the context of its time. And if we assess the events described here in the context of the mid-twentieth century and refined European culture, Auschwitz and the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” represent the most repulsive act in all of history. Through their crime, the Nazis revealed to the world what educated, technologically advanced people are capable of if they possess cold hearts. The knowledge of what they did, once released into the world, must not be forgotten. It still lies there—ugly, heavy, waiting to be uncovered by each new generation. A warning for us, and for those who will come after us.
The author recounts the entire existence of the camp, from its establishment in 1940 to its final days in 1945. Initially, Auschwitz wasn’t created as a death factory; it was used to imprison political detainees, Soviet prisoners of war, and others considered undesirable. In fact, during its early days, there was even a possibility of being released, although the criteria for ending one’s stay were far from transparent.
However, as the Nazis’ attitude toward the Jews shifted, so too did the camp’s purpose. The author does not focus on detailed descriptions of all the horrors committed in the camp. There are other books, photo albums, and even some works of fiction that delve into these aspects much more deeply.
What Laurence Rees does, with the thoroughness of a historian, is describe the events both in Germany and the occupied territories, showing how they evolved step by step in line with the Nazis’ growing desire to exterminate the Jews, whom their doctrine blamed for all the sins and misfortunes of the Aryan nation.
The book is built on an extensive collection of interviews conducted by the author, both with survivors of the genocide and with some former Nazis who served at Auschwitz. By interweaving quotes from these interviews throughout the text, Rees reveals facts that are not often discussed when recounting this horrific chapter of history.
For example, in Germany itself, Jews were not initially exterminated the way they were in the occupied territories. In many cases, local governments were even more eager to send Jews to their deaths than the Nazis themselves. And essentially, only one nation—the Danes—resisted and managed to save the majority of their Jewish population.
The book also makes clear that Auschwitz was not the first death factory. And that many ordinary staff members of such camps escaped punishment altogether.
As a Western author, Rees does cover events on the Eastern Front, which he argues were just as significant as the much-celebrated Allied invasion of Normandy.
However, he does not shy away from addressing facts that are inconvenient for Soviet-era historians. Although Soviet forces liberated many camps, the former prisoners often suffered just as much at the hands of their so-called liberators as they had under the Nazis:
the awareness that women, who had already endured horrific treatment in camps like Auschwitz, were later subjected to violence by their liberators, evokes deep revulsion, as there had been nothing quite like it in history before
It’s also fascinating to consider how former neighbors behaved when surviving Jews returned to their hometowns. Many Jews were forced to leave for distant lands permanently. This, too, was something that was not commonly discussed in the country of “brotherly peoples,” where even years later, Jews were not always treated well.
There is much more to say about the book, but that only confirms that it is truly worth reading. Few authors approach this topic with such depth. I highly recommend this book, and I will certainly read other works by this author.
My rating: 5/5
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