Is there a definitive popular history book about Auschwitz?

January 10, 2017 1:07 PM

I say "popular history book" only to distinguish from academic sources. Thanks for your suggestions.
posted by Bobby Bittman to Education (4 answers total)

Best answer: I'd go with Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees.
posted by thelonius at 1:16 PM on January 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

These three memoirs jump out as a good start before reading any third-party accounts, although I'm not familiar with the Rees book:

Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz by Primo Levi
Night by Elie Wiesel
Maus by Art Spiegelman
posted by morspin at 9:09 PM on January 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Rees book is good but I'm going to recommend this book by Dwork and Van Pelt. I've read quite a bit of Holocaust history and actually learned some new things from it (such as the size/location of the main camp vis-à-vis the current museum site).

For (thinly fictionalized) memoirs I'd recommend Tadeusz Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, which is easily one of the most harrowing books I've ever read. If you've read Czeslaw Milosz's The Captive Mind, Borowski is Beta, the Disappointed Lover.
posted by orrnyereg at 8:33 AM on January 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

This may be off base but you might want to try Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.
posted by achrise at 8:41 AM on January 11, 2017 [2 favorites]