People in Auschwitz

“The preparation of this classic for the English-speaking world makes one of the most important and powerful survivor accounts of Auschwitz accessible to the West, and introduces general readers to the mind and experience of a crucially placed and astonishingly observant witness to the Holocaust. In the first-person literature created by survivors and victims in the ghettos and concentration camps, People in Auschwitz ranks as an historical document with works like The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow, and the memoirs of Buchenwald survivor Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell. Langbein’s epic, at long last, also serves as a moral antidote and historical counterweight to the memoirs of the notorious Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, first published nearly fifty years ago.” — Charles W. Sydnor Jr., author of Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death’s Head Division, 1933–1945

“This is a scrupulously scholarly achievement and will become a classic of Holocaust history.” — Jewish Book World

“First published in German more than 30 years ago, this modestly titled memoir provides a unique account of the Third Reich’s most notorious death camp. . . . in weaving together these uncomfortable truths with the most comprehensive analysis of any survivor memoir, Langbein’s People in Auschwitz represents an indispensable addition to English-language literature on the Holocaust.” — German Studies Review

“Hermann Langbein, then a communist activist, was a leading member of the underground movement in Auschwitz concentration camp, and an acute observer of the situation there. His memoir is one of the foundation stones of research on Auschwitz, an indispensable contribution to the complex and fearsome reality of the camp.” — Yehuda Bauer, director of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

“Monumental. . . . Free of self-pity, sentimentality and cliché. . . . Always painstaking about the truth, outlining the reality of Auschwitz . . . So precisely to investigate . . . the problem of the ”Auschwitz Universe“ . . . and to think it through required extraordinary strength of character, [and] relentless industry.” — Domino (Zurich)

“For generations of historians this work . . . will be a mine of discovery.” — Die Zukunft (Vienna)

“Coming generations who want factual enlightenment about what happened . . . will find it in Langbein’s book.” — Salzburger Nachrichten

“Educators and teachers should seize this work as a report that one will scarcely forget, nor should one be permitted to [forget].” — Israel Forum

“Both sides of the barbed wire of Auschwitz. . . . Langbein resists generalization and black-and-white characterization.” — HTV Magazin

“Langbein’s book is a must not only for reparations council authorities and their reports. It is of equal significance for school and university students, teachers, historians, librarians, and for all politically conscious people. Whoever tries today to suppress [what happened at Auschwitz], and states the opinion that similar things happen today, is a fool or a sympathizer with criminals of the lowest order. Possibly Langbein’s book also can serve as instructive reading for those evil individuals who always approach the subject in bad faith.” — Die Mahnung (Berlin)