Research Catalog

Title

People in Auschwitz / Hermann Langbein ; translated by Harry Zohn ; foreword by Henry Friedlander.

Author

Langbein, Hermann, 1912-1995.

Publication

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 549 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

"Hermann Langbein was allowed to know and see extraordinary things forbidden to other Auschwitz inmates. Interned there in 1942 and classified as a non-Jewish political prisoner, his assignment as clerk to the chief SS physician of the extermination camp complex allowed his access to documents, conversations, and actions that would have remained unknown to history were it not for his witness and his subsequent research. Also a member of the Auschwitz resistance, he sometimes found himself in a position to influence events, though at his peril." "People in Auschwitz is very different from other works on the most infamous of Nazi annihilation centers. Langbein's account is a scrupulously scholarly achievement intertwining his own experiences with quotations from other inmates, SS guards and administrators, civilian industry and military personnel, and official documents. Whether his recounting deals with captors or inmates, Langbein addresses and analyzes the events and their context objectively, in an unemotional style, rendering a narrative that is unique in the history of the Holocaust. This monumental book helps one to comprehend what has so tenaciously challenged understanding."--Jacket.

Uniform Title

Menschen in Auschwitz. English

Alternative Title

Menschen in Auschwitz.

Subject

• Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
• World War, 1939-1945 > Prisoners and prisons, German
• Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)

Note

• "Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [523]-536) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Author's rationale -- The camp and its jargon -- The history of the extermination camp -- Numbers -- The prisoners -- Under the power of the camp -- The Muselmann -- The inmate and death -- Music and games -- Canada -- The VIPs -- Jewish VIPs -- Creating accomplices -- The Sonderkommando -- The inmate infirmary -- Those born in Auschwitz -- Resistance -- The jailers -- The guards -- People, not devils -- The commandant -- SS leaders -- Physicians in the SS -- Dr. Wirths -- Subordinates of the SS leaders -- Sexuality -- Reactions of human nature -- Frank and Pestek -- Civilians in Auschwitz -- Afterward -- Inmates after liberation -- SS members after the war -- Conclusion and warning.

ISBN

0807828165 (cloth : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2003020485

OCLC

53045244

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library