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Scheisshaus Luck: Surviving The Unspeakable In Auschwitz And Dora (2008)

by Pierre Berg(Favorite Author)

4.15 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0814412998 (ISBN13: 9780814412992)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

AMACOM/American Management Association

review 1: Pierre Berg should have not gone to Auschwitz. He was not Jewish by birth or belief; in fact he was an atheist. But he was visiting a friend when the Gestapo came to that house in Nice, France. He had a fake I.D. because he was a messenger for the French underground. If the Gestapo knew that, he would have been executed right away. Instead he was taken to do cleaning in a quarantined ward. This is where he fell in love with Stella, another prisoner. He always smelled back from cleaning the outhouses and was named the Dandy of the Shithouse. They had a store room of clothes there, they had plenty to eat. Then everyone was taken away to Germany. The previous prisoner experiences were like a wonderful dream world to him.The experiences that he had were not those of the Jewish... more people, wearing the yellow triangles but of a political prisoner. He was not taken to be gassed or burnt. He still could have been `selected" for death. This book is filled with details because he wrote everything down after two years of being released. He still has a serial number; every day ate a strange thin brown soup that may have been made from beets, a small portion of bread and a token piece of butter. Sometimes there was no food or water. He still wore gray and blue pajamas like clothes that were never washed all the time. He still saw many atrocities committed by the Nazis.One scene in this book literally made me sick so this book needs to be approached with a strong stomach. There is another scene that I will never forget. The the darkness when their train arrived at Auschwitz and when families were torn apart by dividing up by sex and age. Then they were told to strip, only keeping their belts.This is not the "one" book about the Holocaust or even the main one, but this is one of the very many that you need to read in order to know what went on. I believe to get the whole picture; you need to read many books by different kinds of survivors and books about those who did not. Pierre used his memory of Stella, his girlfriend to stay alive. Without that he may not have.I highly recommend this book to people wanting to learn about the Holocaust but also hope that readers will make a constant effort to keep learning more.
review 2: This is one of the best Holocaust memoirs I've ever read. I read it last spring but couldn't write a review of it at the time because the book made my emotions so raw. I finally checked it out of the library again last month, started reading it, but had to stop 100 pages in. It hurts too much. The writing and story are both so intense that my heart was breaking. This memoir does not skimp on horrific details and it's intense. It's absolutely devastating that people lived through tortures such as these. less

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