People in Auschwitz

by Langbein, Hermann; Zohn, Harry; Friedlander, Henry

• ISBN13: 9780807828168
• ISBN10: 0807828165
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

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

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Henry Friedlander
Introduction
Author's Rationale	3	(8)
The Camp and Its Jargon	11	(7)
The History of the Extermination Camp	18	(33)
Numbers	51	(12)
THE PRISONERS
Under the Power of the Camp	63	(26)
The Muselmann	89	(17)
The Inmate and Death	106	(19)
Music and Games	125	(8)
Canada	133	(10)
The VIPS	143	(26)
Jewish VIPS	169	(9)
Creating Accomplices	178	(13)
The Sonderkommando	191	(12)
The Inmate Infirmary	203	(30)
Those Born in Auschwitz	233	(7)
Resistance	240	(33)
THE JAILERS
The Guards	273	(21)
People, Not Devils	294	(8)
The Commandant	302	(14)
ss Leaders	316	(17)
Physicians in the SS	333	(32)
Dr. Wirths	365	(21)
Subordinates of the SS Leaders	386	(16)
Sexuality	402	(12)
Reactions of Human Nature	414	(24)
Frank and Pestek	438	(11)
Civilians in Auschwitz	449	(22)
AFTERWARD
Inmates after Liberation	471	(31)
SS Members after the War	502	(16)
Conclusion and Warning	518	(5)
Bibliography	523	(14)
Index	537