Auschwitz: A History

(Paperback)

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Description

A short, devastating study of history's most notorious killing ground At the terrible heart of the modern age lies Auschwitz. In a total inversion of earlier hopes about the use of science and technology to improve, extend and protect human life, Auschwitz manipulated the same systems to quite different ends. In Sybille Steinbacher's terse, powerful new book, the reader is led through the process by which something unthinkable to any European in the 1930s had become a sprawling, industrial reality during the course of the world war. How Auschwitz grew and mutated into an entire dreadful city, how both those who managed it and those who were killed by it came to be in Poland in the 1940s, and how it was allowed to happen, is something everyone needs to understand.

Reviews

"A thoughtful overview of a place terrible to remember--and one that must always be remembered." --Kirkus Reviews

"A multitude of books have been written on the camp, yet this brief volume has much to offer both laypersons and scholars interested in its history. . . . A cogent, penetrating work." --Booklist
"In concise and sober fashion, German historian Steinbacher traces the history of Auschwitz from a medieval trading town to the major extermination camp of the Holocaust. . . . Steinbacher, a visiting fellow for European studies at Harvard, avoids extensive analysis or morality tales; the meaning of Auschwitz is in the details, which she provides with clinical precision." --Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Sybille Steinbacher (Author) Sybille Steinbacher teaches at The University of Bochum. She is currently Visiting Fellow at Harvard University.