Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp

More than two milliion poeple died in Auschwitz, 80% of them Jewish. Principal sections in this book addres the history of this camp,the perpetrators,the inmates,escapes and even underground resistance. An excelend one-volume on the history of Auchwitz.

This was the single most well-written book I have found on this topic. The authors present the reader with a very large amount of facts and knowledge in an incredibly articulate manner. I would definitely recommend this book to a friend.

Excellent and detailed account of all aspects of the Auschwitz/Birkenau complex and its subcamps. The illustrations and pictures of the installations and camp add a new insight into the history and functioning of the camp and gives a different perspective on the technology and mindset that led to the mass murder and annihilation that took place there. As reader of holocaust literature for nearly 35 years, I consider this to be a definitive work on this subject.

This book contains several studies by different scholars, about the workings of the Auschwitz killing machine. Very well researched, it addresses different moral, legal, sociological and psychological issues about the people that worked (S.S. and Sonderkommando) and those who died in the camp. It also provides valuable insigths and enough documented information about Auschwitz's infrastructure, that clearly eliminates any possibility to deny the reality of this tragedy.If you are a historian or a scholar of the Holocaust or the S.S, you should have this book in your library. If you are a Holocaust denier, you must read this book, with an open mind. Then, you will be able to perhaps move on, to deny Pol Pot's killing fields...

There have, of course, been many studies of Auschwitz. However, this is far and away the most comprehensive to appear. The many contributors cover the historical, sociological and psychological aspects in rigorous and scholarly style. This reviewer would pick out as particularly insightful Aleksander Lasik's analysis of the SS at the camp,whose numbers grew steadily as the war progressed,and Nathan Cohen for a gripping account of the diaries of the Sonderkommando which were found near the crematoria at Birkenau. Since the book is over 600 pages of closely argued text, it is in effect a work of reference. Fortunately, the index appears to be very good and following up subjects or characters is not difficult. There are, incidentally, two themes not really tracked here: holocaust revisionism debates nor Auschwitz as portrayed in the mass media. The editors, no doubt sensibly, have instead revealed what made Auschwitz tick and how perpetrators and victims related to their gruesome environment.