Devastating. I hope this one will be as widely read as Night.

Este libro nos cuenta la historia de Eddy, un sobreviviente de los horrores de Auschwitz. Un libro que escribió aún estando dentro del campo, haciéndolo una fuente de información invaluable.

Y si bien es la historia de Eddy, el autor decide crear a Hans, el protagonista de este libro, pues solo así fue capaz de escribir sobre los horrores que vivió.

Hans (Eddy) era doctor, y su esposa Friedel era una enfermera, se conocieron cuando él llegó a Westerbork, un campo de tránsito alemán, se enamoraron y se casaron, pero poco después conocerían el verdadero infierno.

Ambos fueron deportados a Auschwitz.

Llegando ahí se dieron cuenta de que los rumores que circulaban acerca de estos campos de concentración eran ciertos, aunque lo que se imaginaron fue superado con creces, estos campos eran aún peor.

Este es un testimonio más de los actos inhumanos que tenían los nazis con los presos, y aún así, me encontré con una nueva cara de Auschwitz.

Y así como ellos eran la imagen de la maldad más pura que haya existido, Hans era la otra cara de la moneda, pues desde que entró no hizo más que buscar cómo ver a su esposa, o por lo menos cómo mantenerla a salvo, y hasta que no lo consiguió, pudo “descansar”, porque en esos lugares dejados de la mano de Dios no había descanso, ni siquiera cuando dormías.

Hans y Friedel tuvieron la “suerte” de encontrarse en cierto momento en barracones conjuntos, él estaba en el Block 9 y su amada Friedel en el Block 10, este último era el barracón de los experimentos. Hans hizo lo que estuvo en su poder para no permitir que dañaran mucho a su esposa.

Todo el libro esta plagado de desesperanza, horror, desesperación, muerte y crueldad, pero también había leves destellos de felicidad y amor, pues solo así Hans, y millones más, pudieron sobrevivir a esta terrible injusticia.

Solo evocando sus recuerdos más preciados podían salir adelante, solo así no se rendirían. El espíritu humano es muy fuerte, y en ellos vemos la prueba.

Así fue como Hans sobrevivió muchas noches, con pensamientos de Friedel en su cabeza, tan cerca pero tan, tan lejos de él, pues si bien los barracones estaban separados por solo unos pasos, la distancia en estos lugares era relativa, para nosotros eran solo unos pasos, para ellos era una vida.

Muchos sobrevivieron solo para contar su historia, la historia de millones. Me partió el alma saber que en esos momentos temían que nadie les creyera, pero no se achicaron ante ese pensamiento, saldrían de esa y gritarían a los cuatro vientos todas las injusticias que vivieron.

Tenían la esperanza de que si contaban lo que ellos habían sufrido, el mundo cambiaría, no dejarían que algo así sucediera de nuevo.

Pero me temo que le hemos fallado a Eddy y a todas esas almas inocentes, creo que tenemos que reflexionar hasta comprender qué hemos hecho mal y cómo podemos solucionarlo, porque decimos no olvidar, pero claramente seguimos dejando que pase.

Súper recomendado, lectores, es un libro de una vida en cautiverio, que contiene muchísimos mensajes. No nos dejará indiferentes. Estos testimonios jamás nos pueden dejar indiferentes.

Thank you to the publisher for a gifted copy of this impactful book.

It feels trite to give a star rating to someone's life story, especially one of this magnitude. I think books like this one, Night by Elie Wiesel, and Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl should be required reading for all people. As we move farther away from this time in history and our lives become more and more privileged, this book and other stories like it can help to ground us. It makes one realize how easy our lives truly are, how insignificant our problems tend to be in the grand scheme of things.

There are parts of this book that will forever be burned in my brain. The suffering of the prisoners in Auschwitz is truly so unfathomable.

I’ve read a lot of stories about the holocaust, but this one was different. Eddy wrote his account while he was actually in Auschwitz, which gives the reader a first-hand account of the terror faced by men, women, and children. It was Eddy’s wish that his story stay alive and that future generations would learn from the horror experienced by over a million people so that it will never be repeated. The publisher adds additional
Historical Context and information about the work Eddy went on to do after Auschwitz.

five stars

An important historical document as all these types of memoirs indeed are! This more so as it was written directly inside the camp itself by Eddy.
Again, through all the hate, stress, deprivation, experiments and lost, there is a deep invested will of love, hope and determination to survive.

Notes before I start - 1) I feel ridiculous checking the spoilers box, because the Holocaust is a well documented historical fact. At the same time, Eddy's life is not known as well, and so I will leave it to the reader whether they wish to read this review before or not. 2) The book itself is well worth reading. It is not an easy read, it is very emotionally charged, and it is an incredible treasure. 3) I apologize for the length of the review. I chose to use quotes from the book because I feel that Eddy's words have power that can never be replicated in summation.

When I started reading this recollection of life in Auschwitz, I did not realize that it was written in the third person - Eddy de Wind found that he simply could not relate these agonizingly painful and fresh experiences in a first person narrative. In many ways this made the book easier to read because an artificial emotional distance was created between the reader and the narrative voice. There are certain moments in the book, however, where this distance vanishes with the power of a thousand exploding suns, when the reader is reminded that the author was describing a hell that he personally experienced: "Anyway, that evening a few more of us were sick."

De Wind had a deep understanding of the horror of concentration camps that served as both extermination centers and forced labor camps that wrung every last drop of effort out of the people they sought to destroy: "No, Auschwitz was more than torment writ large. With its factories and mines it was an important part of the Upper Silesian industrial area and its workers were cheaper than anywhere else in the world. They didn't need any pay and they ate almost nothing. And then, when they were exhausted and fell victim to the gas chamber, there were still enough Jews and political opponents in Europe to make up the numbers yet again." The psychological horror inflicted on the prisoners followed them all the way through complete physical infirmity because "[i]t's a law of nutrition that, even when wasting away, the heart, brain, and organs maintain their normal weight the longest. As a result, most of them were all too aware of what was happening to them."

Having studied the Holocaust and concentration camps from that and other eras, I am well familiar with the concept of gallows humor that often developed among the prisoners. It is, nevertheless, always jarring to hear it related by a survivor. One notable example here is an offhand comment that: "Arbeit macht frei... Krematorium drei!" (Work will set you free... [in] crematorium three!) Likewise, it seems inconceivable to hear a stint of hard labor that nearly led to de Wind's demise referred to as an "adventure." Without resorting to gallows humor and light-hearted references to their inhumane circumstances, people imprisoned in these camps of horrors would likely have given in to their despair and perished from this world.

At the same time, "after years in concentration camps even the best of people develop their own 'sense of justice.'" After all, "[r]esistance, even a show of pity, would have been pointless suicide." It is in such recurrent narratives about the dual reality of being tortured and having to accept that choices must be made that can lead to torture and/or death for others, that de Wind started what would become his life's work - learning to process and help others process the trauma resulting from concentration camp imprisonment.

However, de Wind drew a sharp distinction between the prisoners would had to learn to survive by giving up a measure of their humanity, and the Nazis who suppressed their own humanity in the name of the ideals they adopted. When speaking about Nazis who sometimes made kind decisions, he told Friedel that: "I don't think that's a point in their favor. On the contrary. The youngsters have been raised in the spirit of blood and soil. They don't know any better. But those older ones, like the Lagerarzt, show through those minor acts that they still harbor a remnant of their upbringing. They didn't learn this inhumanity from an early age and had no need to embrace it. That's why they're guiltier than the young Nazi sheep, who have never known better." This condemnation becomes all the more powerful because it is directed at Josef Mengele, who showed through acts of interceding on the behalf of Eddy and Friedel on 2 separate occasions, that he fully understood and was capable of humane behavior.

This narrative of one man's experiences is an incredible historical account of a dark stain on human history. It should become required reading for students, alongside Maus. Together, the two works form a powerful picture of life under the bootheel of the German Reich.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy.

Written while Eddy de Wind was a prisoner in Auschwitz, this survival story is one that can’t be missed. Like all Holocaust stories, the atrocities are laid bare, and like with most survival stories, there is always hope, hope and humanity.

More thoughts to come.

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Een indrukwekkend verhaal over Auschwitz, geschreven door Eddy de Wind. Eddy vertelt het verhaal over zijn leven in het kamp.
Door de schrijfstijl kwam ik alleen totaal niet in het verhaal en heb dan ook veel moeite gehad om het uit te lezen.