Treblinka

I have a morbid facsination with the Holocaust and Holocaust literature so I picked up Treblinka. I was not prepared for what was in it, how it would make me feel. I couldn't put it down. For two days I lived and breathed Treblinka, for two days I was beaten, starved, tortured, I saw my family gassed, I saw my fellow inmates hang themselves because death was better than this hell on earth. For two days I was an inmate of Treblinka because Jean-Francois Steiner put me there. Treblinka is quite possibly the most important piece of Holocaust literature ever written. It is non-fiction but it reads like a novel. It told me more about the death camps and Nazi regime than all of the books I have read combined. The most amazing thing about Treblinka though was the psychology behind it all. It gave answer to my question: Why did they not revolt before this? Why did they simply allow themselves to be led to death? On the third day I rose from the bottom of the abyss, I revolted, I left Treblinka along with 700 Jews, survivors of hell. I left but I didn't escape, no one escapes Treblinka. Like how Treblinka will always hold it's prisoners, Treblinka will always hold it's readers in it's mental grasp.

I was required to read Treblinka by Proffesor Schonfeld at the University of California at Irvine. I have read a lot of literature on the Holocaust and yet am always amazed by it. This book takes it a step farther in understanding the meticuous perfection the Germans sought in exterminating a whole race of people. It is a book of triamph, but also shows in great detail how the German intentions could never be fulfilled because of a driving natural force within all of mankind to continue living. Not to live as individuals, but to fight in order to continue a whole lineage of people. It is beautifuly written and extremelly enlightening. I Thank Professor Schonfeld for requiring it, and you will thank me for reccomending it. Tricia Taft