Histoire du Camp de Dora (Textes à l'appui)

by André Sellier

French

Genres: History, Holocaust

540 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Bob Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Andre Sellier is by trade a noted historian. But his soul is that of a Holocaust survivor of the Dora concentration camp. My sense is he wrote this authoritative but exhausting book as a personal bit of therapy, not wanting to forget a single detail.
The result is a work so jammed with individual prisoner names, untranslated German titles and terms, minute map locations and the like that the horror of the reality of Nazi crime is smothered with minutia. It is a work worthy of a PhD dissertation, but a very tough read for a more casual reader, even one like me who has an interest in the topic and reads a lot of history of the era.
There is a lot to learn in this book, but be prepared for a slog.

[Peter Rooijmans]

"If you peer into the abyss long enough, it will look back into you".
As a companion to the combat history of the V-2, this book describes the project from the prisoner point of view and is dedicated to the many people from many backgrounds and nationalities, who worked and died in the elaborate camp system.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Amazing to read a death camp history written by a survivor who happened to become a trained historian after his experience. I think the experience of writing this must have been cathartic for Sellier in a way. Painful, but cathartic.