Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

5 star books!!, 29 May 2006

Primo Levi recounts his time in the concentration camp as someone trying make sense of what is happening around him, and of human nature. Unlike other books on the subject it did not make me want to cry about how unjust the world was it made me want to think about life and about human nature. His prose is just unbelievable - so lucid and stuning. His observations on human behaviour are so accurate. This is definitely the best book I am likely to read in a long time!!

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

5 star books!!, 29 May 2006

Primo Levi recounts his time in the concentration camp as someone trying make sense of what is happening around him, and of human nature. Unlike other books on the subject it did not make me want to cry about how unjust the world was it made me want to think about life and about human nature. His prose is just unbelievable - so lucid and stuning. His observations on human behaviour are so accurate. This is definitely the best book I am likely to read in a long time!!

Disappointing, 15 Jul 2008
Truly the worst holocaust testimony ever written.So many mistakes throughout the whole text.Two examples of which were when Mr Muller mentions the camp orchestra in Birkenau,there was none.He also quotes that Kramer was in Birkenau and had came from Auschwitz 2.Both are one and the same place But important errors like these were repeated in every chapter and the worry for me is that Holocaust deniers may pick up on these simple blunders.Mr Mullers over use of adjectives and repetition of statements at times resulted in the book bordering on being boring.It read more like a students written essay who wasnt fully informed ,rather than an actual Holocaust survivors memoirs.Ive read many more imformative Holocaust testimonies and even Mr Muller must have been disappointed with the finished article.I tend to believe that the foreword said it all.

ochmister, 06 Jun 2008
Simple, one of the best books I have ever read. Very sad, sometimes un believable. But believe, this really happened and should not be forgotton. My respect goes to the author.

An account by somebody who witnessed everything first hand., 16 May 2008
There have been countless books written about Hitlers Final solution mostly by historians and occasionally by eyewitness survivors.

You can read account after account of conditions in the final months leading to the Russians eventual entry into the camp but few books will be as informative as this one written by camp Sonderkommando Filip Muller whose actual job was to operate the crematoria and dispose of the thousands of corpses.

During the latter half of 1944 an incredible 10,000+ were liquidated on a daily basis.This may appear too far fetched to comprehend at first but when you realise that those in command from Hitler right down to Himmlers eventual realisation that the war was turning against them a dramatic escelation in gassing took place until mass shootings were the norm and corpses were burnt round the clock in open pits.

At the height of the liquidation Berkenhau had over ten ovens working night and day resulting in a massive escalation of gassings.In early 1944,10,000 prisoners were murdered every day and there were sufficient ovens to cope with the huge number of bodies.

Filip was there as all this was going on and later as the mass of bodies became too overwhelming to cope with it was the Sonderkommandos duty to remove the rotting corpses for disposal in the ovens.

There are certain passages that will really make one think momentarily on the question of mans inhumanity towards his fellow man.

The arrival and first trial of mass gassings where under extream brutality men women and children were forced to undress knowingly they were facing certain death.

Possibly the most heart rending extracts are to be found on page 48 where Filip having discovered the arrival of his father at the camp has to cremate his body after his death from tythus.Fellow workmen working alongside him at the blazing ovens recite a prayer.

The book really brings the true barbarity of camp life to the reader.

The inhumanity of certain Kapos or team leaders given trusted duties by the SS who were extreamly sadistic beating fellow prisoners to death due to anger against what the SS were doing to their fellow countrymen.

Whilst reading the first two chapters one clearly realises these are the genuine testimony of somebody who lived on a daily basis where systematic murder was common place.Unless you witnessed at first hand you couldnot make up such testimony such as these.

As i have already said you can write about this highly documented period in history but unless you were physically there in person to witness these events no amount of research will reveal the actual truth.

This is why Filip Mullers book is so important,as less than a handfull of Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz actually lived to bear witness to their testimony.Every few months new Sonderkommandos were appointed whilst those working at the cremetoria were gassed with other prisoners so that the truth of Genocide was never allowed to escape.Filips survival is the more amazing in that he survived and bared witness to the atrocities.

Unless you were actually there in person you cannot envisage the horrors and brutality of camp guards and SS officers.Muller recounts day to day life within the confines of Auschwitz-Berkenhau like only a fellow prisoner could relate.

His matter of fact account of unimaginable horrors makes compelling reading if not unpleasant reading.He has not withheld any of the material that will disgust or distress us,everything has been accounted for right up to his amazing survival.

As a Sonderkommando he was to some extent safe as his services were of great importance to the camps efficient running.Without him and other workers the mass murder couldnot have taken place at such a large scale.

A book that is extreamly well written by somebody who actually knows what went on within the camp.Few books can bring home the true meaning of genocide as can this one.

If you are looking for great detail on events and life within Hitlers largest death camp then this book will not disappoint.

Brings the Reality of what went on home !, 11 May 2008
I visited Auschwitz earlier this year. I wish I had read this book before I had gone as it really brought home the terrible crimes that went on in this place. If you are interested in Auschwitz then this is a must read !

Gripping, 28 Apr 2008
What an amazing account of the holocaust and believe me I have read a few!
This book gives a gripping account of one mans survival in the death factory that can only be described as hell on earth.
The author is a testimony to courage and mans desire to stay alive at all costs.
Buy this now!

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

5 star books!!, 29 May 2006

Primo Levi recounts his time in the concentration camp as someone trying make sense of what is happening around him, and of human nature. Unlike other books on the subject it did not make me want to cry about how unjust the world was it made me want to think about life and about human nature. His prose is just unbelievable - so lucid and stuning. His observations on human behaviour are so accurate. This is definitely the best book I am likely to read in a long time!!

Disappointing, 15 Jul 2008
Truly the worst holocaust testimony ever written.So many mistakes throughout the whole text.Two examples of which were when Mr Muller mentions the camp orchestra in Birkenau,there was none.He also quotes that Kramer was in Birkenau and had came from Auschwitz 2.Both are one and the same place But important errors like these were repeated in every chapter and the worry for me is that Holocaust deniers may pick up on these simple blunders.Mr Mullers over use of adjectives and repetition of statements at times resulted in the book bordering on being boring.It read more like a students written essay who wasnt fully informed ,rather than an actual Holocaust survivors memoirs.Ive read many more imformative Holocaust testimonies and even Mr Muller must have been disappointed with the finished article.I tend to believe that the foreword said it all.

ochmister, 06 Jun 2008
Simple, one of the best books I have ever read. Very sad, sometimes un believable. But believe, this really happened and should not be forgotton. My respect goes to the author.

An account by somebody who witnessed everything first hand., 16 May 2008
There have been countless books written about Hitlers Final solution mostly by historians and occasionally by eyewitness survivors.

You can read account after account of conditions in the final months leading to the Russians eventual entry into the camp but few books will be as informative as this one written by camp Sonderkommando Filip Muller whose actual job was to operate the crematoria and dispose of the thousands of corpses.

During the latter half of 1944 an incredible 10,000+ were liquidated on a daily basis.This may appear too far fetched to comprehend at first but when you realise that those in command from Hitler right down to Himmlers eventual realisation that the war was turning against them a dramatic escelation in gassing took place until mass shootings were the norm and corpses were burnt round the clock in open pits.

At the height of the liquidation Berkenhau had over ten ovens working night and day resulting in a massive escalation of gassings.In early 1944,10,000 prisoners were murdered every day and there were sufficient ovens to cope with the huge number of bodies.

Filip was there as all this was going on and later as the mass of bodies became too overwhelming to cope with it was the Sonderkommandos duty to remove the rotting corpses for disposal in the ovens.

There are certain passages that will really make one think momentarily on the question of mans inhumanity towards his fellow man.

The arrival and first trial of mass gassings where under extream brutality men women and children were forced to undress knowingly they were facing certain death.

Possibly the most heart rending extracts are to be found on page 48 where Filip having discovered the arrival of his father at the camp has to cremate his body after his death from tythus.Fellow workmen working alongside him at the blazing ovens recite a prayer.

The book really brings the true barbarity of camp life to the reader.

The inhumanity of certain Kapos or team leaders given trusted duties by the SS who were extreamly sadistic beating fellow prisoners to death due to anger against what the SS were doing to their fellow countrymen.

Whilst reading the first two chapters one clearly realises these are the genuine testimony of somebody who lived on a daily basis where systematic murder was common place.Unless you witnessed at first hand you couldnot make up such testimony such as these.

As i have already said you can write about this highly documented period in history but unless you were physically there in person to witness these events no amount of research will reveal the actual truth.

This is why Filip Mullers book is so important,as less than a handfull of Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz actually lived to bear witness to their testimony.Every few months new Sonderkommandos were appointed whilst those working at the cremetoria were gassed with other prisoners so that the truth of Genocide was never allowed to escape.Filips survival is the more amazing in that he survived and bared witness to the atrocities.

Unless you were actually there in person you cannot envisage the horrors and brutality of camp guards and SS officers.Muller recounts day to day life within the confines of Auschwitz-Berkenhau like only a fellow prisoner could relate.

His matter of fact account of unimaginable horrors makes compelling reading if not unpleasant reading.He has not withheld any of the material that will disgust or distress us,everything has been accounted for right up to his amazing survival.

As a Sonderkommando he was to some extent safe as his services were of great importance to the camps efficient running.Without him and other workers the mass murder couldnot have taken place at such a large scale.

A book that is extreamly well written by somebody who actually knows what went on within the camp.Few books can bring home the true meaning of genocide as can this one.

If you are looking for great detail on events and life within Hitlers largest death camp then this book will not disappoint.

Brings the Reality of what went on home !, 11 May 2008
I visited Auschwitz earlier this year. I wish I had read this book before I had gone as it really brought home the terrible crimes that went on in this place. If you are interested in Auschwitz then this is a must read !

Gripping, 28 Apr 2008
What an amazing account of the holocaust and believe me I have read a few!
This book gives a gripping account of one mans survival in the death factory that can only be described as hell on earth.
The author is a testimony to courage and mans desire to stay alive at all costs.
Buy this now!

We must never forget., 31 Jul 2007
`Night' is a poignant, evocative story of a young Elie Wiesel and his father and their experiences in a number of concentration camps during WWII. The translation from French is done beautifully, as it is written in a plain, straightforward manner, and it reads with an eloquence and softness that belies the subject matter. As you read `Night', you find yourself cringing, eyes wide with horror, and it gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach to know that innocent human beings were subjected to physical and emotional pain beyond belief. It is not graphic in the sense that there is too much information, it tells, in its simplicity, the truth of what one person experienced at one time, on this earth. Sixty years later, we believe what history has shown us of these atrocities, yet do we understand? In `Night', Elie Wiesel attempts to make us understand. He talks about Death with a capital "D" and "The Selection" of people for slaughter. His sadness and despair during his incarceration, as well as his alarming indifference to certain things in the name of survival, permeate each page. Finally, we realize that this book is written as a tribute to his father and his father's beliefs that "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" and keep the memory alive, "Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices". So Elie Wiesel will not stay silent, and we must never forget.

A powerful account, 10 Mar 2007
A powerful masterpiece of events we should never forget. It is an autobiographical account of the author's survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. It is a horrific account, yet important to recall as testimony to the extremes racist thinking can lead. We need to remember this brutality to ensure that humanity learns important lessons. I recommend this book and also suggest checking out "Nexus" by Morrison & Singh - a novel about how we are united through our empathy and compassion.

very touching, 23 Jan 2006
This personal account of the holocaust by Elie Wiesel's book is a horrifying story of the Nazi death camps. The author tells the story in a simple manner, yet it is easy for a reader to end up feeling haunted by the accounts in NIGHT. It stirs sadness and profound questions in the bosom of a reader. The lessons from this book about the evil side of fallen human nature and the faith, courage and moral strength to fight the evil must never be forgotten. I recommend this book to any reader interested in the holocaust and the specter of mass killings plaguing the world today.Survival In Auschwitz, Union Moujik, Shake hands with the Devil, Disciples of Fortune,First They Killed My Father, Triple Agent Double, King Leopold's Ghost, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare,The Gulag Archipelago are also recommended reads to help have a better understanding of threat humanity faces from the evil ideologies of hate

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

5 star books!!, 29 May 2006

Primo Levi recounts his time in the concentration camp as someone trying make sense of what is happening around him, and of human nature. Unlike other books on the subject it did not make me want to cry about how unjust the world was it made me want to think about life and about human nature. His prose is just unbelievable - so lucid and stuning. His observations on human behaviour are so accurate. This is definitely the best book I am likely to read in a long time!!

Disappointing, 15 Jul 2008
Truly the worst holocaust testimony ever written.So many mistakes throughout the whole text.Two examples of which were when Mr Muller mentions the camp orchestra in Birkenau,there was none.He also quotes that Kramer was in Birkenau and had came from Auschwitz 2.Both are one and the same place But important errors like these were repeated in every chapter and the worry for me is that Holocaust deniers may pick up on these simple blunders.Mr Mullers over use of adjectives and repetition of statements at times resulted in the book bordering on being boring.It read more like a students written essay who wasnt fully informed ,rather than an actual Holocaust survivors memoirs.Ive read many more imformative Holocaust testimonies and even Mr Muller must have been disappointed with the finished article.I tend to believe that the foreword said it all.

ochmister, 06 Jun 2008
Simple, one of the best books I have ever read. Very sad, sometimes un believable. But believe, this really happened and should not be forgotton. My respect goes to the author.

An account by somebody who witnessed everything first hand., 16 May 2008
There have been countless books written about Hitlers Final solution mostly by historians and occasionally by eyewitness survivors.

You can read account after account of conditions in the final months leading to the Russians eventual entry into the camp but few books will be as informative as this one written by camp Sonderkommando Filip Muller whose actual job was to operate the crematoria and dispose of the thousands of corpses.

During the latter half of 1944 an incredible 10,000+ were liquidated on a daily basis.This may appear too far fetched to comprehend at first but when you realise that those in command from Hitler right down to Himmlers eventual realisation that the war was turning against them a dramatic escelation in gassing took place until mass shootings were the norm and corpses were burnt round the clock in open pits.

At the height of the liquidation Berkenhau had over ten ovens working night and day resulting in a massive escalation of gassings.In early 1944,10,000 prisoners were murdered every day and there were sufficient ovens to cope with the huge number of bodies.

Filip was there as all this was going on and later as the mass of bodies became too overwhelming to cope with it was the Sonderkommandos duty to remove the rotting corpses for disposal in the ovens.

There are certain passages that will really make one think momentarily on the question of mans inhumanity towards his fellow man.

The arrival and first trial of mass gassings where under extream brutality men women and children were forced to undress knowingly they were facing certain death.

Possibly the most heart rending extracts are to be found on page 48 where Filip having discovered the arrival of his father at the camp has to cremate his body after his death from tythus.Fellow workmen working alongside him at the blazing ovens recite a prayer.

The book really brings the true barbarity of camp life to the reader.

The inhumanity of certain Kapos or team leaders given trusted duties by the SS who were extreamly sadistic beating fellow prisoners to death due to anger against what the SS were doing to their fellow countrymen.

Whilst reading the first two chapters one clearly realises these are the genuine testimony of somebody who lived on a daily basis where systematic murder was common place.Unless you witnessed at first hand you couldnot make up such testimony such as these.

As i have already said you can write about this highly documented period in history but unless you were physically there in person to witness these events no amount of research will reveal the actual truth.

This is why Filip Mullers book is so important,as less than a handfull of Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz actually lived to bear witness to their testimony.Every few months new Sonderkommandos were appointed whilst those working at the cremetoria were gassed with other prisoners so that the truth of Genocide was never allowed to escape.Filips survival is the more amazing in that he survived and bared witness to the atrocities.

Unless you were actually there in person you cannot envisage the horrors and brutality of camp guards and SS officers.Muller recounts day to day life within the confines of Auschwitz-Berkenhau like only a fellow prisoner could relate.

His matter of fact account of unimaginable horrors makes compelling reading if not unpleasant reading.He has not withheld any of the material that will disgust or distress us,everything has been accounted for right up to his amazing survival.

As a Sonderkommando he was to some extent safe as his services were of great importance to the camps efficient running.Without him and other workers the mass murder couldnot have taken place at such a large scale.

A book that is extreamly well written by somebody who actually knows what went on within the camp.Few books can bring home the true meaning of genocide as can this one.

If you are looking for great detail on events and life within Hitlers largest death camp then this book will not disappoint.

Brings the Reality of what went on home !, 11 May 2008
I visited Auschwitz earlier this year. I wish I had read this book before I had gone as it really brought home the terrible crimes that went on in this place. If you are interested in Auschwitz then this is a must read !

Gripping, 28 Apr 2008
What an amazing account of the holocaust and believe me I have read a few!
This book gives a gripping account of one mans survival in the death factory that can only be described as hell on earth.
The author is a testimony to courage and mans desire to stay alive at all costs.
Buy this now!

We must never forget., 31 Jul 2007
`Night' is a poignant, evocative story of a young Elie Wiesel and his father and their experiences in a number of concentration camps during WWII. The translation from French is done beautifully, as it is written in a plain, straightforward manner, and it reads with an eloquence and softness that belies the subject matter. As you read `Night', you find yourself cringing, eyes wide with horror, and it gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach to know that innocent human beings were subjected to physical and emotional pain beyond belief. It is not graphic in the sense that there is too much information, it tells, in its simplicity, the truth of what one person experienced at one time, on this earth. Sixty years later, we believe what history has shown us of these atrocities, yet do we understand? In `Night', Elie Wiesel attempts to make us understand. He talks about Death with a capital "D" and "The Selection" of people for slaughter. His sadness and despair during his incarceration, as well as his alarming indifference to certain things in the name of survival, permeate each page. Finally, we realize that this book is written as a tribute to his father and his father's beliefs that "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" and keep the memory alive, "Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices". So Elie Wiesel will not stay silent, and we must never forget.

A powerful account, 10 Mar 2007
A powerful masterpiece of events we should never forget. It is an autobiographical account of the author's survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. It is a horrific account, yet important to recall as testimony to the extremes racist thinking can lead. We need to remember this brutality to ensure that humanity learns important lessons. I recommend this book and also suggest checking out "Nexus" by Morrison & Singh - a novel about how we are united through our empathy and compassion.

very touching, 23 Jan 2006
This personal account of the holocaust by Elie Wiesel's book is a horrifying story of the Nazi death camps. The author tells the story in a simple manner, yet it is easy for a reader to end up feeling haunted by the accounts in NIGHT. It stirs sadness and profound questions in the bosom of a reader. The lessons from this book about the evil side of fallen human nature and the faith, courage and moral strength to fight the evil must never be forgotten. I recommend this book to any reader interested in the holocaust and the specter of mass killings plaguing the world today.Survival In Auschwitz, Union Moujik, Shake hands with the Devil, Disciples of Fortune,First They Killed My Father, Triple Agent Double, King Leopold's Ghost, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare,The Gulag Archipelago are also recommended reads to help have a better understanding of threat humanity faces from the evil ideologies of hate

Gripping and so inspiring!, 30 May 2008
I received this book only a day or so after ordering it here on Amazon, and began it that very evening.....
I have found it hard to put down, and thoroughly recommend it, I shall finish it by tomorrow, and then my daughter is going to read it. She is learning all about Hitler and world war2 for G.C.S.E's, but not enough is taught regarding the Jews and what happened. This book should be read by all children, to help them realise how lucky they are not to have to experience such horror, and to feel and empathise for what really happened, and to stop it ever happening again. This is an amazing, inspirational and terribly moving insight into a young Jewish girls experience of living through World war 2 in Poland. I cried, and also am filled with admiration for such lovely warm people. We all have a lot to learn from Jewish people, they are so loving and kind and value what really matters, being loyal and moral and true to God. I love you Alicia, God Bless You.................... and all the Jews that were murdered, God Bless them all.

An irrepressible spirit of survival, 19 May 2008
Raised from the age of five in Buczacz, which was roughly a third Jewish at that time, Alicia was sheltered relatively well from the anti-Semitism that plagued her town, as well as the rest of Europe. She had many friends, both Jewish and Christian.
After the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, whereby the two genocidal dictators divided Poland between them, Buczacz fell into the Soviet zone. The Soviets began a forced Sovietization drive, and deported thousands of people to slave labour, or their deaths, who they saw as 'enemies of the Soviet Union'.Alicia recalls being offended and hurt, on behalf of her Christian friends, for whose religion she had deep respect, when the Madonna and Child were removed from their customary spot in the classroom and replaced by scowling portraits of Lenin and Stalin.
Alicia's second-oldest brother Moshe was shot by the Soviets after returning to Poland, from the harsh conditions in Russia, where he had gone for education.
In June 1941, the Germans broke their pact with the Soviets and swept through eastern Poland on their way to Russia - Operation Barbarossa had begun. The Germans, however, had an even worse plan than the Soviets had had for Europe's Jews: it was known as Endlosung (aka The Final Solution).

Alicia's father was shot, alongside 600 other Jewish community leaders, shortly after the Nazi invasion.
Alicia, and her mother and brothers were forced to leave their beautiful home, and to settle in the ghetto.
They lived under harsh laws whereby Jews were forced to wear armbands with stars of David.
Jews who tried to leave the ghetto or to enter the synagogue would be executed.
Alicia's brother Bunion was then executed by the Nazis.

While visiting a Jewish family in the town, 12 year old Alicia was arrested by the Nazis along with thousands of other Jews, but escaped from the train to the death camps, together with a band of other young people.
After Alicia's brother Zachary was shot by the Nazis She swore on his grave that if she survived she would speak for her silenced family.
This book is a powerful and unforgettable fulfilment of that oath.
It keeps us engaged and emotionally involved on every page, as we read of her struggle to survive, her irrepressible spirit, her many brushes with death. She never gave up her will to survive nor her humanity for fellow victims of the Nazis, many of whom she helped to rescue, many of whom died before her eyes.
She witnessed such horrors as babies being shot in their cribs by the Nazis.
While many of the Polish and Ukrainian neighbours helped the Nazis and joined in the killings, there were always those few that helped to keep their Jewish fellow humans alive, including a Polish family on whose farm Alicia worked.
After the war, Alicia's struggle was not over.
She was imprisoned by the Soviets and took part in the secret operation to smuggle Jews to the Land of Israel, across Europe, at a time when the British were keeping the Holocaust survivors out, often with brutal and violent methods reminiscent of the Nazis themselves.
Alicia was on the ship Theodor Herzl, carrying young Holocaust survivors to Israel, in 1946, when it was rammed by British frigates, after which British soldiers then boarded the ship and attacked the survivors, beating to death six young Jews and allowing others to drown while trying to escape.
This courageous girl, had struggled as part of the Jewish nation against three ruthless empires.


Heartrending read, 15 Mar 2008
If you are interested in Holocaust history then this book is a must. Your heart goes out to Alicia right from the start.
It sends a clear picture of what the Nazis were like and what horrors they were capable of, the book is very well written and it is very difficult to put down because all you want is for the family to survive.


Unbelievable - but true, 21 May 2007
I haven't even finished reading this book, but felt I must let other people know how fantastic it is. An amazing true story of courage and hope and each page is more gripping than the last. This book has given me more of an insight into what happened to the Polish Jews than anything else I have seen or read. If you're interested in this period of history then buy this book now.

Remarkable story from a remarkable woman, 05 Apr 2007
I am a huge reader of holocaust literature. There's something really inspiring in the way that people such as Alica survive the very worst of deprevations, and somehow manage to emerge out the other side not just as survivors but as trully remarkable human beings.

Alicia's story really is heart rending. How she didn't herself go under when she saw one member of her family after another lose their life we can only wonder at.

Although this work is biographical, it really has the feel of a novel to it, and so is a very fluent read. The only criticism I would make was that the end of the book was a little abrupt. I really felt I could have done with one final chapter on how Alica rebuilt her life in Israel and America.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

5 star books!!, 29 May 2006

Primo Levi recounts his time in the concentration camp as someone trying make sense of what is happening around him, and of human nature. Unlike other books on the subject it did not make me want to cry about how unjust the world was it made me want to think about life and about human nature. His prose is just unbelievable - so lucid and stuning. His observations on human behaviour are so accurate. This is definitely the best book I am likely to read in a long time!!

Disappointing, 15 Jul 2008
Truly the worst holocaust testimony ever written.So many mistakes throughout the whole text.Two examples of which were when Mr Muller mentions the camp orchestra in Birkenau,there was none.He also quotes that Kramer was in Birkenau and had came from Auschwitz 2.Both are one and the same place But important errors like these were repeated in every chapter and the worry for me is that Holocaust deniers may pick up on these simple blunders.Mr Mullers over use of adjectives and repetition of statements at times resulted in the book bordering on being boring.It read more like a students written essay who wasnt fully informed ,rather than an actual Holocaust survivors memoirs.Ive read many more imformative Holocaust testimonies and even Mr Muller must have been disappointed with the finished article.I tend to believe that the foreword said it all.

ochmister, 06 Jun 2008
Simple, one of the best books I have ever read. Very sad, sometimes un believable. But believe, this really happened and should not be forgotton. My respect goes to the author.

An account by somebody who witnessed everything first hand., 16 May 2008
There have been countless books written about Hitlers Final solution mostly by historians and occasionally by eyewitness survivors.

You can read account after account of conditions in the final months leading to the Russians eventual entry into the camp but few books will be as informative as this one written by camp Sonderkommando Filip Muller whose actual job was to operate the crematoria and dispose of the thousands of corpses.

During the latter half of 1944 an incredible 10,000+ were liquidated on a daily basis.This may appear too far fetched to comprehend at first but when you realise that those in command from Hitler right down to Himmlers eventual realisation that the war was turning against them a dramatic escelation in gassing took place until mass shootings were the norm and corpses were burnt round the clock in open pits.

At the height of the liquidation Berkenhau had over ten ovens working night and day resulting in a massive escalation of gassings.In early 1944,10,000 prisoners were murdered every day and there were sufficient ovens to cope with the huge number of bodies.

Filip was there as all this was going on and later as the mass of bodies became too overwhelming to cope with it was the Sonderkommandos duty to remove the rotting corpses for disposal in the ovens.

There are certain passages that will really make one think momentarily on the question of mans inhumanity towards his fellow man.

The arrival and first trial of mass gassings where under extream brutality men women and children were forced to undress knowingly they were facing certain death.

Possibly the most heart rending extracts are to be found on page 48 where Filip having discovered the arrival of his father at the camp has to cremate his body after his death from tythus.Fellow workmen working alongside him at the blazing ovens recite a prayer.

The book really brings the true barbarity of camp life to the reader.

The inhumanity of certain Kapos or team leaders given trusted duties by the SS who were extreamly sadistic beating fellow prisoners to death due to anger against what the SS were doing to their fellow countrymen.

Whilst reading the first two chapters one clearly realises these are the genuine testimony of somebody who lived on a daily basis where systematic murder was common place.Unless you witnessed at first hand you couldnot make up such testimony such as these.

As i have already said you can write about this highly documented period in history but unless you were physically there in person to witness these events no amount of research will reveal the actual truth.

This is why Filip Mullers book is so important,as less than a handfull of Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz actually lived to bear witness to their testimony.Every few months new Sonderkommandos were appointed whilst those working at the cremetoria were gassed with other prisoners so that the truth of Genocide was never allowed to escape.Filips survival is the more amazing in that he survived and bared witness to the atrocities.

Unless you were actually there in person you cannot envisage the horrors and brutality of camp guards and SS officers.Muller recounts day to day life within the confines of Auschwitz-Berkenhau like only a fellow prisoner could relate.

His matter of fact account of unimaginable horrors makes compelling reading if not unpleasant reading.He has not withheld any of the material that will disgust or distress us,everything has been accounted for right up to his amazing survival.

As a Sonderkommando he was to some extent safe as his services were of great importance to the camps efficient running.Without him and other workers the mass murder couldnot have taken place at such a large scale.

A book that is extreamly well written by somebody who actually knows what went on within the camp.Few books can bring home the true meaning of genocide as can this one.

If you are looking for great detail on events and life within Hitlers largest death camp then this book will not disappoint.

Brings the Reality of what went on home !, 11 May 2008
I visited Auschwitz earlier this year. I wish I had read this book before I had gone as it really brought home the terrible crimes that went on in this place. If you are interested in Auschwitz then this is a must read !

Gripping, 28 Apr 2008
What an amazing account of the holocaust and believe me I have read a few!
This book gives a gripping account of one mans survival in the death factory that can only be described as hell on earth.
The author is a testimony to courage and mans desire to stay alive at all costs.
Buy this now!

We must never forget., 31 Jul 2007
`Night' is a poignant, evocative story of a young Elie Wiesel and his father and their experiences in a number of concentration camps during WWII. The translation from French is done beautifully, as it is written in a plain, straightforward manner, and it reads with an eloquence and softness that belies the subject matter. As you read `Night', you find yourself cringing, eyes wide with horror, and it gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach to know that innocent human beings were subjected to physical and emotional pain beyond belief. It is not graphic in the sense that there is too much information, it tells, in its simplicity, the truth of what one person experienced at one time, on this earth. Sixty years later, we believe what history has shown us of these atrocities, yet do we understand? In `Night', Elie Wiesel attempts to make us understand. He talks about Death with a capital "D" and "The Selection" of people for slaughter. His sadness and despair during his incarceration, as well as his alarming indifference to certain things in the name of survival, permeate each page. Finally, we realize that this book is written as a tribute to his father and his father's beliefs that "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" and keep the memory alive, "Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices". So Elie Wiesel will not stay silent, and we must never forget.

A powerful account, 10 Mar 2007
A powerful masterpiece of events we should never forget. It is an autobiographical account of the author's survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. It is a horrific account, yet important to recall as testimony to the extremes racist thinking can lead. We need to remember this brutality to ensure that humanity learns important lessons. I recommend this book and also suggest checking out "Nexus" by Morrison & Singh - a novel about how we are united through our empathy and compassion.

very touching, 23 Jan 2006
This personal account of the holocaust by Elie Wiesel's book is a horrifying story of the Nazi death camps. The author tells the story in a simple manner, yet it is easy for a reader to end up feeling haunted by the accounts in NIGHT. It stirs sadness and profound questions in the bosom of a reader. The lessons from this book about the evil side of fallen human nature and the faith, courage and moral strength to fight the evil must never be forgotten. I recommend this book to any reader interested in the holocaust and the specter of mass killings plaguing the world today.Survival In Auschwitz, Union Moujik, Shake hands with the Devil, Disciples of Fortune,First They Killed My Father, Triple Agent Double, King Leopold's Ghost, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare,The Gulag Archipelago are also recommended reads to help have a better understanding of threat humanity faces from the evil ideologies of hate

Gripping and so inspiring!, 30 May 2008
I received this book only a day or so after ordering it here on Amazon, and began it that very evening.....
I have found it hard to put down, and thoroughly recommend it, I shall finish it by tomorrow, and then my daughter is going to read it. She is learning all about Hitler and world war2 for G.C.S.E's, but not enough is taught regarding the Jews and what happened. This book should be read by all children, to help them realise how lucky they are not to have to experience such horror, and to feel and empathise for what really happened, and to stop it ever happening again. This is an amazing, inspirational and terribly moving insight into a young Jewish girls experience of living through World war 2 in Poland. I cried, and also am filled with admiration for such lovely warm people. We all have a lot to learn from Jewish people, they are so loving and kind and value what really matters, being loyal and moral and true to God. I love you Alicia, God Bless You.................... and all the Jews that were murdered, God Bless them all.

An irrepressible spirit of survival, 19 May 2008
Raised from the age of five in Buczacz, which was roughly a third Jewish at that time, Alicia was sheltered relatively well from the anti-Semitism that plagued her town, as well as the rest of Europe. She had many friends, both Jewish and Christian.
After the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, whereby the two genocidal dictators divided Poland between them, Buczacz fell into the Soviet zone. The Soviets began a forced Sovietization drive, and deported thousands of people to slave labour, or their deaths, who they saw as 'enemies of the Soviet Union'.Alicia recalls being offended and hurt, on behalf of her Christian friends, for whose religion she had deep respect, when the Madonna and Child were removed from their customary spot in the classroom and replaced by scowling portraits of Lenin and Stalin.
Alicia's second-oldest brother Moshe was shot by the Soviets after returning to Poland, from the harsh conditions in Russia, where he had gone for education.
In June 1941, the Germans broke their pact with the Soviets and swept through eastern Poland on their way to Russia - Operation Barbarossa had begun. The Germans, however, had an even worse plan than the Soviets had had for Europe's Jews: it was known as Endlosung (aka The Final Solution).

Alicia's father was shot, alongside 600 other Jewish community leaders, shortly after the Nazi invasion.
Alicia, and her mother and brothers were forced to leave their beautiful home, and to settle in the ghetto.
They lived under harsh laws whereby Jews were forced to wear armbands with stars of David.
Jews who tried to leave the ghetto or to enter the synagogue would be executed.
Alicia's brother Bunion was then executed by the Nazis.

While visiting a Jewish family in the town, 12 year old Alicia was arrested by the Nazis along with thousands of other Jews, but escaped from the train to the death camps, together with a band of other young people.
After Alicia's brother Zachary was shot by the Nazis She swore on his grave that if she survived she would speak for her silenced family.
This book is a powerful and unforgettable fulfilment of that oath.
It keeps us engaged and emotionally involved on every page, as we read of her struggle to survive, her irrepressible spirit, her many brushes with death. She never gave up her will to survive nor her humanity for fellow victims of the Nazis, many of whom she helped to rescue, many of whom died before her eyes.
She witnessed such horrors as babies being shot in their cribs by the Nazis.
While many of the Polish and Ukrainian neighbours helped the Nazis and joined in the killings, there were always those few that helped to keep their Jewish fellow humans alive, including a Polish family on whose farm Alicia worked.
After the war, Alicia's struggle was not over.
She was imprisoned by the Soviets and took part in the secret operation to smuggle Jews to the Land of Israel, across Europe, at a time when the British were keeping the Holocaust survivors out, often with brutal and violent methods reminiscent of the Nazis themselves.
Alicia was on the ship Theodor Herzl, carrying young Holocaust survivors to Israel, in 1946, when it was rammed by British frigates, after which British soldiers then boarded the ship and attacked the survivors, beating to death six young Jews and allowing others to drown while trying to escape.
This courageous girl, had struggled as part of the Jewish nation against three ruthless empires.


Heartrending read, 15 Mar 2008
If you are interested in Holocaust history then this book is a must. Your heart goes out to Alicia right from the start.
It sends a clear picture of what the Nazis were like and what horrors they were capable of, the book is very well written and it is very difficult to put down because all you want is for the family to survive.


Unbelievable - but true, 21 May 2007
I haven't even finished reading this book, but felt I must let other people know how fantastic it is. An amazing true story of courage and hope and each page is more gripping than the last. This book has given me more of an insight into what happened to the Polish Jews than anything else I have seen or read. If you're interested in this period of history then buy this book now.

Remarkable story from a remarkable woman, 05 Apr 2007
I am a huge reader of holocaust literature. There's something really inspiring in the way that people such as Alica survive the very worst of deprevations, and somehow manage to emerge out the other side not just as survivors but as trully remarkable human beings.

Alicia's story really is heart rending. How she didn't herself go under when she saw one member of her family after another lose their life we can only wonder at.

Although this work is biographical, it really has the feel of a novel to it, and so is a very fluent read. The only criticism I would make was that the end of the book was a little abrupt. I really felt I could have done with one final chapter on how Alica rebuilt her life in Israel and America.

Inspiring, humbling........., 11 Aug 2008
Buy this book is all I can say, I have read many books on the holocaust, and life within the concentration camps, and 'Five Chimneys' is one well worth reading......... it will stay with you forever, I also highly recommend 'Is this a man' by Primo Levi. God Bless all the survivors, and all those who died such tragic deaths, under such unbelievable, hellish circumstances. It certainly puts ones life into perspective!

A True Story of Courage,Terror, and Inhuman Behaviour, 21 Mar 2008
Olga Lengyel went through hell and to survive and write such a clear and vivd account is fantastic. The suffering and torture that people went through and in the most disgusting of conditions must not be allowed to happen again.

Her book is a very vivd account and what all readers must do is not to allow a holocaust to repeat itself again. Millions of people suffered and died. We must all make sure that what happend is not forgotten and does not every happen again. That way they will not have suffered and died for nothing. You must read this book.

the true story of holocaust survival, 26 Nov 2007
having read this book some 15 to 20 years ago, i was very deeply moved by some of the pieces in the book, the story of olga sending her children to one side of the line at the railway staion only to find later that she had actually sent them to the gas chamber indeed almost brought me to tears then!
also the account of the amount of people compared to the cattle that were herded in to the cattle trucks was very destressing

i could almost tell the story of the top of my head but thats up to other people to find out them selves
Also having watched the BBC2 documentery the World at war about the holocaust,( which only scratched the surface compared to this book )i cannot rate this book any higher than the 5 stars this site allows
BUY IT, READ IT, BUT NEVER FORGET IT!


"The only way out is up the chimney", 16 Nov 2006
Another one of those books that 'should' be read, why? because someone wanted to survive simply to tell their tale. A story that the world wasn't meant to know. Apart from that it makes for compulsive reading and will make your present woes seem fairly insignificant.

moving, 17 Feb 2006
I read this book within 3 days i couldnt put it down, it was very moving and gives the reader a great insight in to life as a jew in world war 2 germany i highly recomend this book, with a box of tissues

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

5 star books!!, 29 May 2006

Primo Levi recounts his time in the concentration camp as someone trying make sense of what is happening around him, and of human nature. Unlike other books on the subject it did not make me want to cry about how unjust the world was it made me want to think about life and about human nature. His prose is just unbelievable - so lucid and stuning. His observations on human behaviour are so accurate. This is definitely the best book I am likely to read in a long time!!

Disappointing, 15 Jul 2008
Truly the worst holocaust testimony ever written.So many mistakes throughout the whole text.Two examples of which were when Mr Muller mentions the camp orchestra in Birkenau,there was none.He also quotes that Kramer was in Birkenau and had came from Auschwitz 2.Both are one and the same place But important errors like these were repeated in every chapter and the worry for me is that Holocaust deniers may pick up on these simple blunders.Mr Mullers over use of adjectives and repetition of statements at times resulted in the book bordering on being boring.It read more like a students written essay who wasnt fully informed ,rather than an actual Holocaust survivors memoirs.Ive read many more imformative Holocaust testimonies and even Mr Muller must have been disappointed with the finished article.I tend to believe that the foreword said it all.

ochmister, 06 Jun 2008
Simple, one of the best books I have ever read. Very sad, sometimes un believable. But believe, this really happened and should not be forgotton. My respect goes to the author.

An account by somebody who witnessed everything first hand., 16 May 2008
There have been countless books written about Hitlers Final solution mostly by historians and occasionally by eyewitness survivors.

You can read account after account of conditions in the final months leading to the Russians eventual entry into the camp but few books will be as informative as this one written by camp Sonderkommando Filip Muller whose actual job was to operate the crematoria and dispose of the thousands of corpses.

During the latter half of 1944 an incredible 10,000+ were liquidated on a daily basis.This may appear too far fetched to comprehend at first but when you realise that those in command from Hitler right down to Himmlers eventual realisation that the war was turning against them a dramatic escelation in gassing took place until mass shootings were the norm and corpses were burnt round the clock in open pits.

At the height of the liquidation Berkenhau had over ten ovens working night and day resulting in a massive escalation of gassings.In early 1944,10,000 prisoners were murdered every day and there were sufficient ovens to cope with the huge number of bodies.

Filip was there as all this was going on and later as the mass of bodies became too overwhelming to cope with it was the Sonderkommandos duty to remove the rotting corpses for disposal in the ovens.

There are certain passages that will really make one think momentarily on the question of mans inhumanity towards his fellow man.

The arrival and first trial of mass gassings where under extream brutality men women and children were forced to undress knowingly they were facing certain death.

Possibly the most heart rending extracts are to be found on page 48 where Filip having discovered the arrival of his father at the camp has to cremate his body after his death from tythus.Fellow workmen working alongside him at the blazing ovens recite a prayer.

The book really brings the true barbarity of camp life to the reader.

The inhumanity of certain Kapos or team leaders given trusted duties by the SS who were extreamly sadistic beating fellow prisoners to death due to anger against what the SS were doing to their fellow countrymen.

Whilst reading the first two chapters one clearly realises these are the genuine testimony of somebody who lived on a daily basis where systematic murder was common place.Unless you witnessed at first hand you couldnot make up such testimony such as these.

As i have already said you can write about this highly documented period in history but unless you were physically there in person to witness these events no amount of research will reveal the actual truth.

This is why Filip Mullers book is so important,as less than a handfull of Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz actually lived to bear witness to their testimony.Every few months new Sonderkommandos were appointed whilst those working at the cremetoria were gassed with other prisoners so that the truth of Genocide was never allowed to escape.Filips survival is the more amazing in that he survived and bared witness to the atrocities.

Unless you were actually there in person you cannot envisage the horrors and brutality of camp guards and SS officers.Muller recounts day to day life within the confines of Auschwitz-Berkenhau like only a fellow prisoner could relate.

His matter of fact account of unimaginable horrors makes compelling reading if not unpleasant reading.He has not withheld any of the material that will disgust or distress us,everything has been accounted for right up to his amazing survival.

As a Sonderkommando he was to some extent safe as his services were of great importance to the camps efficient running.Without him and other workers the mass murder couldnot have taken place at such a large scale.

A book that is extreamly well written by somebody who actually knows what went on within the camp.Few books can bring home the true meaning of genocide as can this one.

If you are looking for great detail on events and life within Hitlers largest death camp then this book will not disappoint.

Brings the Reality of what went on home !, 11 May 2008
I visited Auschwitz earlier this year. I wish I had read this book before I had gone as it really brought home the terrible crimes that went on in this place. If you are interested in Auschwitz then this is a must read !

Gripping, 28 Apr 2008
What an amazing account of the holocaust and believe me I have read a few!
This book gives a gripping account of one mans survival in the death factory that can only be described as hell on earth.
The author is a testimony to courage and mans desire to stay alive at all costs.
Buy this now!

We must never forget., 31 Jul 2007
`Night' is a poignant, evocative story of a young Elie Wiesel and his father and their experiences in a number of concentration camps during WWII. The translation from French is done beautifully, as it is written in a plain, straightforward manner, and it reads with an eloquence and softness that belies the subject matter. As you read `Night', you find yourself cringing, eyes wide with horror, and it gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach to know that innocent human beings were subjected to physical and emotional pain beyond belief. It is not graphic in the sense that there is too much information, it tells, in its simplicity, the truth of what one person experienced at one time, on this earth. Sixty years later, we believe what history has shown us of these atrocities, yet do we understand? In `Night', Elie Wiesel attempts to make us understand. He talks about Death with a capital "D" and "The Selection" of people for slaughter. His sadness and despair during his incarceration, as well as his alarming indifference to certain things in the name of survival, permeate each page. Finally, we realize that this book is written as a tribute to his father and his father's beliefs that "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" and keep the memory alive, "Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices". So Elie Wiesel will not stay silent, and we must never forget.

A powerful account, 10 Mar 2007
A powerful masterpiece of events we should never forget. It is an autobiographical account of the author's survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. It is a horrific account, yet important to recall as testimony to the extremes racist thinking can lead. We need to remember this brutality to ensure that humanity learns important lessons. I recommend this book and also suggest checking out "Nexus" by Morrison & Singh - a novel about how we are united through our empathy and compassion.

very touching, 23 Jan 2006
This personal account of the holocaust by Elie Wiesel's book is a horrifying story of the Nazi death camps. The author tells the story in a simple manner, yet it is easy for a reader to end up feeling haunted by the accounts in NIGHT. It stirs sadness and profound questions in the bosom of a reader. The lessons from this book about the evil side of fallen human nature and the faith, courage and moral strength to fight the evil must never be forgotten. I recommend this book to any reader interested in the holocaust and the specter of mass killings plaguing the world today.Survival In Auschwitz, Union Moujik, Shake hands with the Devil, Disciples of Fortune,First They Killed My Father, Triple Agent Double, King Leopold's Ghost, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare,The Gulag Archipelago are also recommended reads to help have a better understanding of threat humanity faces from the evil ideologies of hate

Gripping and so inspiring!, 30 May 2008
I received this book only a day or so after ordering it here on Amazon, and began it that very evening.....
I have found it hard to put down, and thoroughly recommend it, I shall finish it by tomorrow, and then my daughter is going to read it. She is learning all about Hitler and world war2 for G.C.S.E's, but not enough is taught regarding the Jews and what happened. This book should be read by all children, to help them realise how lucky they are not to have to experience such horror, and to feel and empathise for what really happened, and to stop it ever happening again. This is an amazing, inspirational and terribly moving insight into a young Jewish girls experience of living through World war 2 in Poland. I cried, and also am filled with admiration for such lovely warm people. We all have a lot to learn from Jewish people, they are so loving and kind and value what really matters, being loyal and moral and true to God. I love you Alicia, God Bless You.................... and all the Jews that were murdered, God Bless them all.

An irrepressible spirit of survival, 19 May 2008
Raised from the age of five in Buczacz, which was roughly a third Jewish at that time, Alicia was sheltered relatively well from the anti-Semitism that plagued her town, as well as the rest of Europe. She had many friends, both Jewish and Christian.
After the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, whereby the two genocidal dictators divided Poland between them, Buczacz fell into the Soviet zone. The Soviets began a forced Sovietization drive, and deported thousands of people to slave labour, or their deaths, who they saw as 'enemies of the Soviet Union'.Alicia recalls being offended and hurt, on behalf of her Christian friends, for whose religion she had deep respect, when the Madonna and Child were removed from their customary spot in the classroom and replaced by scowling portraits of Lenin and Stalin.
Alicia's second-oldest brother Moshe was shot by the Soviets after returning to Poland, from the harsh conditions in Russia, where he had gone for education.
In June 1941, the Germans broke their pact with the Soviets and swept through eastern Poland on their way to Russia - Operation Barbarossa had begun. The Germans, however, had an even worse plan than the Soviets had had for Europe's Jews: it was known as Endlosung (aka The Final Solution).

Alicia's father was shot, alongside 600 other Jewish community leaders, shortly after the Nazi invasion.
Alicia, and her mother and brothers were forced to leave their beautiful home, and to settle in the ghetto.
They lived under harsh laws whereby Jews were forced to wear armbands with stars of David.
Jews who tried to leave the ghetto or to enter the synagogue would be executed.
Alicia's brother Bunion was then executed by the Nazis.

While visiting a Jewish family in the town, 12 year old Alicia was arrested by the Nazis along with thousands of other Jews, but escaped from the train to the death camps, together with a band of other young people.
After Alicia's brother Zachary was shot by the Nazis She swore on his grave that if she survived she would speak for her silenced family.
This book is a powerful and unforgettable fulfilment of that oath.
It keeps us engaged and emotionally involved on every page, as we read of her struggle to survive, her irrepressible spirit, her many brushes with death. She never gave up her will to survive nor her humanity for fellow victims of the Nazis, many of whom she helped to rescue, many of whom died before her eyes.
She witnessed such horrors as babies being shot in their cribs by the Nazis.
While many of the Polish and Ukrainian neighbours helped the Nazis and joined in the killings, there were always those few that helped to keep their Jewish fellow humans alive, including a Polish family on whose farm Alicia worked.
After the war, Alicia's struggle was not over.
She was imprisoned by the Soviets and took part in the secret operation to smuggle Jews to the Land of Israel, across Europe, at a time when the British were keeping the Holocaust survivors out, often with brutal and violent methods reminiscent of the Nazis themselves.
Alicia was on the ship Theodor Herzl, carrying young Holocaust survivors to Israel, in 1946, when it was rammed by British frigates, after which British soldiers then boarded the ship and attacked the survivors, beating to death six young Jews and allowing others to drown while trying to escape.
This courageous girl, had struggled as part of the Jewish nation against three ruthless empires.


Heartrending read, 15 Mar 2008
If you are interested in Holocaust history then this book is a must. Your heart goes out to Alicia right from the start.
It sends a clear picture of what the Nazis were like and what horrors they were capable of, the book is very well written and it is very difficult to put down because all you want is for the family to survive.


Unbelievable - but true, 21 May 2007
I haven't even finished reading this bo