Debórah Dwork Boeken

No symbol of the Holocaust is more profound than Auschwitz. Yet the sheer, crushing number of murders - over 1,200,000 - the overwhelming scale of the crime, and the vast, abandoned site of ruined chimneys and rusting barbed wire isolate Auschwitz from us. How could an ordinary town become a site of such terror? Why was this particular town chosen? Who conceived, created, and constructed the camp? This unprecedented history reveals how an unremarkable Polish village was transformed into a killing field. Using architectural designs and planning documents recently discovered in Poland and Russia and over 200 illustrations, Auschwitz tells how this town became the epicenter of the Final Solution.

Drawing on oral histories recorded by the authors over 15 years across Europe and the United States, as well as on documents, letters and diaries never before analyzed, this volume aims to change to way we look at the greatest crime in history.

Der Name Auschwitz ist wie kein anderer zum Synonym für die Ermordung der europäischen Juden geworden. Debórah Dwork und Robert Jan van Pelt verfolgen im ersten Teil des Buches die Geschichte der 1270 gegründeten Stadt. Im zweiten Teil werden Entstehung und Expansion des Lagers sowie Organisation und Durchführung der Judenvernichtung dokumentiert. In diesem grundlegenden Standardwerk widerlegen die Autoren selbst den letzten Zweifel an der grauenhaften Realität des Holocaust ein für allemal.