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Rating: 
Summary: "Nature's call was heeded upon a naked corpse."
Review: Eugene Kogon takes us on a wild ride from beginning to end as we're ushered inside the gates of the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp in WWII era Nazi Germany, and given a thorough and methodical tour of the premises (and an indoctrination into the system behind the camps). As a former Buchenwald inmate who escaped death several times and ultimately lived to tell the tale, Kogon has the dirt on everything and everyone--from the notorious quarry details, to his cunning domination of SS Doctor Maj. Ding-Schuler, to the particularly harsh brutalities suffered by Russian prisoners-of-war. A unique and ultimately very fruitful perspective, and a very informative and engrossing volume on Buchenwald in particular and the camps in general; I'd have given it five stars, but it bogs down just a tad in the middle in discussions on SS office policies. Overall, a very worthwhile purchase.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful Analysis...
Review: I took this book with me to elementary school one day. A fellow student grabbed it from me. Looking at a photo of naked women standing in line at a 'shower', she excitedly showed it to her friend. "Dirty pictures!", she said. She was right.
Rating:
Summary: "DIRTY PICTURES"
Review: I took this book with me to elementary school one day. A fellow student grabbed it from me. Looking at a photo of naked women standing in line at a 'shower', she excitedly showed it to her friend. "Dirty pictures!", she said. She was right.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful Analysis...
Review: This is the best book written about the psychology of the SS and the concentration camps. It demonstrates that the concentration camps were well known among the German population, purposely, as a form of terror to keep them in line. Kogon's status as a German gentile lends extra credibility, as the Holocaust is too often portrayed as a private party attended only by Jewish victims. It also effectively captures the pointless cruelty, mindless ineptitude and irresponsible stupidity of the SS, whose mismanagement of the camps contributed nothing to the German war effort. The Final Solution and concentration camp system proved a logistical nightmare that helped bleed the eastern front to death of its needed supplies. Kogon also describes how camp resistance relied on corrupting SS guards, and how the SS kept forming bureaucracies and prolonging the camps' existence to avoid going to the eastern front. I read a crumbling paper back I picked up second hand. I'm glad Kogon's masterpieces hasn't gone out of print.
Rating: 
Summary: horrifying
Review: This is the most horrifying book I've ever read. The individual acts of violence portrayed in the book are bad enough. The fact that they are all true is worse. However what sets this book apart from other stories of mass murderers is that all the murderers (SS-men, Kapos, etc.) are all part of one SYSTEM, specifically designed to carry out the disgusting acts described in the book.This is the reason we must never forget what happened to Germans, Jews (of all nationalities), Gypsies, Russians, Ukranians, French, Italians, Austrians . . .
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