About the Book:

By the spring of 1945, the Second World War was drawing to a close in Europe. Allied troops were sweeping through Nazi Germany and discovering the atrocities of SS concentration camps. The first to be reached intact was Buchenwald, in central Germany. American soldiers struggled to make sense of the shocking scenes they witnessed inside. They asked a small group of former inmates to draft a report on the camp. It was led by Eugen Kogon, a German political prisoner who had been an inmate since 1939. The Theory and Practice of Hell is his classic account of life inside.

Unlike many other books by survivors who published immediately after the war, The Theory and Practice of Hell is more than a personal account. It is a horrific examination of life and death inside a Nazi concentration camp, a brutal world of a state within state, and a society without law. But Kogon maintains a dispassionate and critical perspective. He tries to understand how the camp works, to uncover its structure and social organization. He knew that the book would shock some readers and provide others with gruesome fascination. But he firmly believed that he had to show the camp in honest, unflinching detail.

The result is a unique historical document—a complete picture of the society, morality, and politics that fueled the systematic torture of six million human beings. For many years, The Theory and Practice of Hell remained the seminal work on the concentration camps, particularly in Germany. Reissued with an introduction by Nikolaus Waschmann, a leading Holocaust scholar and author of Hilter’s Prisons, this important work now demands to be re-read.

Book Review: ★★★★★★

Most people, even today will still have memories of the images that originated out of the Holocaust — particularly the horrifying images of the liberation of the concentration camps as Nazi Germany fell.  And there are still survivors of those hellish camps that are alive today — but their numbers are getting fewer as that generation passes on.  It is the losses of these survivors that makes the written history of this time period so important.  It is imperative that we remember these troubling times, and learn the lessons that have been left to us, so that we can prevent another criminal episode of this magnitude from ever happening again.

Just as most people know the historical background of the Holocaust, the tremendous loss of life, the coined term of “genocide,” and even the concept of bigotry and racial hatred — both of which took on new meaning in the wake of these troubling years — few people realize the depth of the Nazi’s criminal mentality.  It is not commonly understood that the concentration camps were more than just a place to gas thousands of people at one time, and then place them on a conveyor belt of incineration.  What is not realized, especially by upcoming generations that are much farther removed from these events, is that these camps were designed to systematically destroy more than a race of people.  These camps were conceived, designed, built, and enacted with the purpose of mental, physical, emotional, and psychological destruction in mind.

From the moment of arrest within the Nazi machine one was subjected to a systematic process that would eventually leave the individual — those that survived — stripped bare of any mental, moral, ethical, or physical attachments to the outside world.  Cut off from the lives they knew so intimately, victims would be traumatized with a deliberate brutality that was designed to destroy in every human way conceivable — leaving the victim, as well as the Nazi keepers reduced to nothing more than animal instinct.  And it is this result that gives us such a profound insight into the dangers that exist in this type of criminal action.

Kogon gives us an intimate insight into how these camps were conceived, created, established, and eventually developed into well run killing machines.  But he also offers insight into the much more subtle nuances that made these camps of internment the living definition of hell on earth.  Objectively presented, Kogon paints a picture that incorporates both the damaging effects found in not only the Nazi enforcers, but the prisoner population as well.  This book also gives us a look into what happens to men when they have been reduced to the natural instincts of the bare essentials, and allows us to see to what extent men will go, in order to survive in the face of brutality and psychological devastation.

This book is one that I would consider a  must read for any student of the Holocaust years.  But it is also something that should be taught in Psychology classes, and history classes the world over.  Tags: Auschwitz, Concentration Camps, History, Holocaust, Morality, Murder, Nazi, Non-Fiction, Suffering, Survivor, World War II

Category: Biography/Autobiography, History, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, World War II

About the Book:

This extraordinary and unflinchingly honest memoir takes us on a riveting journey into the hearts and souls of three enigmatic people whose destinies are forever changed by the events of World War II. The secrets of misguided love and passions are revealed as the author journeys between the past and the present to solve the mystery of a handsome Polish officer with piercing blue eyes and sun-colored hair. Maria Sutton takes us to the dark green hills and valleys of the ancient Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, where the woody fragrance of birch trees and new-mown hay fills the fresh, crisp air after a heavy rain. Vicariously, we see a sunrise over Poland obscured by brightly colored swastikas on warplanes and then we will be taken into suffocating cattle cars, lice-infested stalags, and to the Dachau death camp. Further down a country road, the hearty laughter and beer steins clinking with each salute to the Fuhrer s astonishing victories can be heard.

As Maria takes us on this odyssey to solve a decades-long mystery, she learns the family secrets of untold heroism, quiet courage, and a mother s love and of tragedy, disillusionment, and heartbreak. At the end of her long journey, Maria uncovers a shattering and painful truth. But the secret, however heartbreaking, would also become the greatest gift she would receive.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

I have spent years reading about both World War II, as well as the Holocaust.  This is a subject that has always fascinated me — and I consider myself someone that is well read on the topic.  So, when I come across a book that has a new approach, and teaches me something new about this tragic, historic event — I am always fascinated.  When the author contacted me and requested to have me read this book, I was more than happy to take this one on.  I love the topic, and even the little she told me about it made me realize that this one was certainly a different story to be told.  This is a memoir that is well worth the read for more than one reason.

First off, this is not your traditional concentration camp story.  Rather it is the story of one woman’s search for her missing father.  A man that was believed to be both a Polish military officer, and a repatriated Prisoner of War.  What is different about this book is that while they were all put into the labor camp at Dachau, Jozef, and the rest of the individuals this story is about were christian civilians who were simply put into camps as a means of supporting the Nazi war machine.  They were young, strong, and capable of providing manual labor.  The author, Maria Sutton spent decades searching for her lost father, Jozef Kurak.  And the story she has to tell is both heart wrenching and inspiring.  Her commitment and tenacity managed to see her through the hardest times, and continue searching when she felt there was nowhere left to look.  Her story is one that the reader will be glad they read.

This story is also different because it isn’t the typical, sad, and even depressing subject material.  Along the way, Sutton manages to learn a great deal about the country her parents came from, as well as the war that proved to be the reason she was brought into being.  And while some of the things she may learn along the way did not turn out to be as she imagined and hoped they would — she never faltered in her belief of the importance of family — and the role that family plays in her life.  Her ability to share this belief is both uplifting, and refreshing — as well as contagious.  In a world that is rapidly seeing the decline of the family — this story is one of hope, and devotion that runs both deep, and strong.

Sutton also provides a different perspective on Naziism, and its overwhelming drive to subjugate other races and people.  And while it is well known that the Jewish people were the primary target of the Nazis — they were certainly, by no means, their only targets.  Sutton’s mother’s story of her time in forced labor, Dachau, and the Displaced Persons camps following the close of the war are insightful in presenting a broader scope of how vast the racial, and ethnic hatred the Nazis had towards people of other nationalities.  Combined with that is the picture on the challenges of immigration to the United States following this war, and the challenges that immigrants faced once they arrived in this country with nothing left but a very few, easily carried possessions.  We come away with a well developed history of this singular war from one of the more unique presentations I have come across.

This is a book that is not only worth the time to read — but it gives the reader much more food for thought in understanding the scope of the crimes the Nazi party committed against humanity.  Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Concentration Camps, Dachau, History, Holocaust, Loss, Love, Nazi, Non-Fiction, Survivor, World War II

Category: History, Non-Fiction, Promo Book Reviews, World War II

About the Book:

One of the most remarkable things about this rich, moving and altogether stunning first novel is Mitchard’s assured command of narrative structure and stylistic resources. Her story about a child’s kidnapping and its enduring effects upon his parents, siblings and extended family is a blockbuster read. When three-year-old Ben Cappadora is abducted from a crowded Chicago hotel lobby where his mother, Beth, has taken him and his two siblings for her 15th high-school reunion, Beth’s slow-motion nightmare is just the beginning of nine years of anguish about his fate. Beth retreats into an emotionless, fugue-like state, in which she neglects her surviving two children-oldest child Vincent and a baby daughter, Kerry-and seals herself off from her husband, Pat, the manager of a family restaurant near their home in Madison, Wisc. Yet jolting surprises continue to rock the narrative, as clues to Ben’s fate emerge and the tension in the Cappadoras’ marriage accelerates. That tension is partly responsible for and partly reflects the now teenaged Vincent’s increasingly aggressive behavior, his desperate effort to forget that he had been in charge of his younger brother when Ben disappeared. Meanwhile, the large, voluble Cappadora clan remains faithful to the hope of Ben’s return, disapproving of Beth’s cold, angry denial that she will ever see her boy again. When she does, after nine years have passed, a series of bitter ironies drives the family off balance once more. Mitchard imbues her suspenseful plot with disturbingly candid psychological truths about motherhood and family relationships. Displaying an infallible ear for family conversation and a keen eye for domestic detail, she writes dialogue that vibrates with natural and unforced humor and acerbic repartee. She charts the subtle and minute gradations of maternal love with candor and captures the essence of teenage experiences and lingo. The novel becomes a universal tale of traumatic loss and its effects on individuals and families, an astute inquiry into the wellsprings of identity and a parable of redemption through suffering and love.

Book Read:  ★★★★★★

I have frequently read books that I have found haunting for their realism, in a linear storyline.  And there are those that are haunting for their portrayal of impossible circumstances that the characters must overcome.  I have even found some books that are haunting for their portrayal of characters so real that they become a part of the reader, and stay with them like old friends, removed but still present in memory.  But this is one book that encapsulated all of these elements.

While on the surface this is a story of a young child that is kidnapped from a hotel, while his mother is within hearing distance of her children, that is not the only story that is being told in this book.  This story carries a much more poignant impact today following the case of Elizabeth Smart, and others that have not only been victims of kidnappings, but against the odds, have been returned home following their ordeal.  And granted, the kidnapping of a child, horrifying as it is, is the central basis of the plot of this story — it is certainly not the single reason for the book.  This is a story that looks closely at the dynamics of a family, under the most extreme of situations, and how the individuals learn to survive within the construct of a family setting, when the unimaginable happens.

I am always amazed at family dynamics — and having worked around a court system that deals with family law for several years now, I have always been of the opinion that family relationships are messy — no matter how you look at it.  These are the people that you spend the most time with in your life.  They are the people that know everything about you, not just the image that you try to create.  They are also the ones that drive you crazy, make you cry and laugh, stand by you through the good times and bad.  They can be the very best, or the very worst influence in your life — and all because they are the ones that are always there.  But within the family structure, there is still the individual — and when extreme situations arise, it is frequently difficult for the individual responses, and the family responses to merge, and balance in a close proximity.  Combine that, as is demonstrated in this story with the trauma of public scrutiny and constant public investigation and judgment, and the dynamics of a family can be completely rewritten.

This book is an excellent look into the dynamics of one family, and how it can change through the course of loosing a child, and dealing with the unknown of what became of that child when there is no resolution for nearly ten years.  The pain, suffering, and the stresses that create the breakdown in a family as they struggle to come to terms with the backlash of emotions of guilt, grief, pain, and suffering are very real, and they are not made to be melodramatic in any way.  Ms. Mitchard has presented a story that shows the struggles that the individuals face in dealing with the trauma, and what happens when the individual suffering gets in the way of seeing the struggles of those closest to you.

From Beth, a mother that completely shuts down, and withdraws from family life, to Pat — the father that is trying to hold everything together, while he struggles with trying to give his remaining children some semblance of a normal life.  Vincent’s turn to delinquency, in an extreme cry for help, and his declaration of pain all speak of how difficult it is to draw strength from the people you would normally draw comfort from, when they, themselves have no strength left to give.  While I don’t believe anyone will ever completely understand what it means to loose a child, unless they have been there — this book does offer at least a glimpse of what can make or break the dynamics of a family, normally strong, and even close, when they are forcibly torn apart from outside forces.

And yet, it is the reintroduction of a changeling that brings the ultimate breaking point for all of the members of the Capadora family, and demonstrates that there is never any going back to what was.  The damage that was inflicted on all parties involved in the madness of the loss of a child is permanent — and even if that child is restored, there is no way to return to what could have been.  But this book also shows us the difficulties that arise in trying to forge a new future, one that was never planned — but rather forced upon this family, already in crisis.

I was originally hesitant to read this book, because many people that told me about the movie, and they didn’t really like how it ended, and felt that there was something missing from the story.  And that does come through in the book to an extent.  But after having read this book, I have decided two things.  First — the book and the movie, in this instance are light years apart.  The movie, as I understand it focuses on the kidnapping story itself, where the book focuses on the family, and the demands of trying the remake that family more than once under impossible circumstances.  Second — The power of this story is very real, and lives with the reader long after the book is closed — due to the personal nature of the characters encountering extreme emotion, under difficult circumstances.

We are all forced to endure change in this life.  And change, something that most people tend to avoid, is the element of life that will either make an individual, or break them.  This story, written to demonstrate this principle, while magnified through the horrifying nature of the circumstances, is very real in the difficulties that people must overcome, when dealing with change.

Tags: Family, Grief, Kidnapping, Loss, Mystery, Siblings, Suffering, Survivor, Suspense

Category: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense/Thriller