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Books & Discussion on the Holocaust
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Bev
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Feb 23, 2024 08:24AM
Sounds interesting Simon.
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Sounds like a very interesting account Simon!
I saw the film "Zone of Interest" yesterday which depicts the everyday life of the Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoss and his family despite living next to the extermination camp. Quite a confronting film with for example the beauty of Hoss' garden overshadowed by the sounds of shots, screams, dogs coming from over the wall and smoke issuing from various chimneys. The extermination of the Jews is treated as just another business challenge (eg new crematorium) and particularly chilling is how Hoss' wife obtains a fur coat from a murdered prisoner. The film also segways to a shot of the current camp with remains of the murdered jews (shoes).It also has a period when Hoss is transferred to the administration of the SS and the disucussion in the early 1944s of the extermination of the Hungary jewish population.
I still am not quite sure how to respond to the film - a number of reviews have spoken of the "banality of evil" that the film portrays and i think that is a fair call. But maybe it is just beyond comprehension and therefore hard to relate as to how Hoss could treat his job as something normal and how his wife considers their house at Auschwitz "perfect".
I've been tossing up whether to go see the movie. I'm still not sure at this stage, but thanks for posting your views on the movie, Alex.
Worth seeing rick. But you never really get to know the characters unlike in “Schindler ark” and so again the issue of comprehending their banality.
I will check it out. My sister saw it and said it did not live up to the hype the film had gotten, but it was still worth seeing.
I thought ‘Zone of Interest’ was outstanding. The last twenty minutes in particular took my breath away. The film hugely concerns itself with absence and what is left unsaid. How do we discuss the incomprehensible? How do we rationalise the idea that the perpetrators were human - like us? I haven’t read it in full, but I know Hannah Arendt concerns herself with this question when she wrote ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil.’ (Which I’ll be reading in full this year). It’s uncomfortable, shocking and chilling.The ending also invites us to consider the long term impact of how we view sites of the Holocaust - especially as an increasing tourist infrastructure accompanies these sites.
The film is experimental, but holds up a poignant mirror to the idea of complicity - especially when that complicity has the veneer of creating a better, more comfortable life for yourself. The whole family fails to challenge their world, or the evil that lies just beyond the wall of their idyllic life.
I would strongly recommend it and I’m glad to see someone raise it in the chat - so thank you!
"Salonica: City of Ghosts" - The vast Jewish cemetery at Salonica was destroyed by the Germans during WW2. According to the author: "The cemetery covered a vast area of nearly thirty-five hectares (in comparison, the Jewish cemetery in Prague is about one hectare) and contained hundreds of thousands of graves. German military authorities requisitioned some of the marble for road-building and to construct a swimming-pool. Greek organizations and individuals carted off more: indeed even a few years ago, tombstones could still be seen stacked in the city's churchyards or set in the walls and roads of the Upper Town."
Jewish cemetery of Salonica:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_...
An April release, a book by a daughter of a Holocaust survivor. I haven't read anything about the Holocaust in Serbia. 
Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia by Julie Brill
Synopsis
In Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia, the reader will discover a powerful, untold chapter of Holocaust history and a daughter's enduring quest to know the story that began a generation before her birth.
From childhood, Julie Brill struggled to understand how her father survived as a young Jewish boy in Belgrade, where Nazis murdered 90 percent of the Jewish population without gas chambers or cattle cars. Through exacting research, a bit of luck, and three emotional trips to Serbia, she pieces together her family's lost past, unearths secrets, and returns to her father a small part of what the Nazis stole: his own family history.
Darya Silman wrote: "An April release, a book by a daughter of a Holocaust survivor. I haven't read anything about the Holocaust in Serbia. [bookcover:Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of th..."
Should be an interesting but harrowing read!
With many necessary pauses, finally finishedIf This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbrück: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Dimitri wrote: "With many necessary pauses, finally finishedIf This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbrück: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm
https://www.goodreads.com..."
Excellent review, Dimitri!
Article about Yvette Manessis Corporon’s Something Beautiful Happened: A Story of Survival and Courage in the Face of Evilhttps://greekreporter.com/2024/01/26/...
I saw that news Rick and am deeply saddened by it.
New book on the Holocaust: The Unspeakable: Breaking my Family's Silence surrounding the Holocaust by Nicola Hanefeld. The author digs out her family's history. Written in a nonfiction narrative style, almost as if the author talks and instantly puts her words on the paper
Yesterday I finished The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World about Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from Auschwitz along with a fellow Jewish prisoner. The pair then tried to warn other Jews and the wider world about what was happening there. The book then follows Vrba through his later life, which continued to be affected by his experiences in Auschwitz, and Majdanek before that. It’s relatively short but very much worth reading for Vrba’s insights into life and death in the camps, and in my view even more so to understand how it impacted on his post war life.
by Jonathan Freedland
Tony wrote: "Yesterday I finished The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World about Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from Auschwitz along with a fellow Jewish prisoner. The p..."Thanks for posting those details, Tony, much appreciated.
Tony wrote: "I found this an interesting read:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c..."
Very interesting, Tony, thanks for providing the link!
Tony wrote: "I found this an interesting read:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c..."
Very interesting, Tony. Thanks.
THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP
Books mentioned in this topic
The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (other topics)The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (other topics)
The Unspeakable: Breaking my Family's Silence surrounding the Holocaust (other topics)
Something Beautiful Happened: A Story of Survival and Courage in the Face of Evil (other topics)
If This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbrück: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Jonathan Freedland (other topics)Nicola Hanefeld (other topics)
Yvette Manessis Corporon (other topics)
Sarah Helm (other topics)
Sarah Helm (other topics)
More...
