Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land

by Sara Nomberg-Przytyk

Book Overview

From the moment I got to Auschwitz I was completely detached. I disconnected my heart and intellect in an act of self-defense, despair, and hopelessness." With these words Sara Nomberg-Przytyk begins this painful and compelling account of her experiences while imprisoned for two years in the infamous death camp. Writing twenty years after her liberation, she recreates the events of a dark past which, in her own words, would have driven her mad had...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807841609
• ISBN13: 9780807841600
• Release Date: August 1986
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 197 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

So well written

Sara is a superb writer and is able to write very vivid accounts of her time at Auschwitz and after. Each story is told in separate chapters with such detail that you can understand a some of what she and others experienced. I would recommend this to anyone who really wants to understand what happened....

makes "night" look like a trip to disneyland

This book blew my breath away. I've read way too many holocaust memoirs, and this is most powerful one in existence (Maus a close second, but for very different reasons, dealing w/ before and after). I'm not sure if it is because of the female narrator and experience, but this pulls you in way too far, and it's a wrenching experience. And it's not necessarily a well-written book, she recycles the same three or four metaphors over and over again, but it doesn't undermine the narrative. No one should be allowed to be human until they've read this.

This memoir is so real

The images in this memoir are extremely powerful. You will not forget them. The language is clear and concise. The writing is so alive that it takes you right there, to the camp experiences, to Auschwitz. This memoir is particularly poignent for those interested in women's experiences in the camps. The author's retelling of the resistance movement in the women's camp, the children born there, the medical experiments and other similar events are unique to women. It stirred my emotions and made me think about the Holocaust and this period of history in ways I had not before. I found myself taking time between each chapter, just to "sit" with the experience, feel it and process. It is an intense read. It will change your perspective and enhance your knowledge. Read this memoir.

It was so moving I literally read it four times.

The way Nomberg-Przytyk captured the horror, sadness, courage, and extreme endourance which she and her fellow friends and prisioners displayed was extremely moving. The way she expressed her shock, horror, compassion, and sheer humanity is amazing. Showing how it was impossible to hide and focused on the importance of the ability to "organize" shows the will to live and the brutality of the nazis and thier camps.The book was simply amazing.

Short chapters with great depth.

I cannot say that any of the eyewitness accounts from people that experienced the Holocaust are better than the other. They are all important and valuable. But some stand out due to their use of language or analytic insight.True tales is one of them that stands out. Sara paints pictures with her words for us to see.Sometimes it is very disturbing pictures we see like in the chapter "The living torch" where the SS throws living babies into the burning pits at Birkenau. But also pictures of hope emerge from the pages of this highly recomended book.