“ It was probably Night that Chris read, which is a decent enough book of its type, pitched, probably deliberately, at the level of a smart middle school reader. I agree with Chris, although it's fairly churlish to pick on this sort of literature, that it' not at the level of (say) Primo Levi's memoirs. “
I think you’re right that it was Night. Actually, I’ve read two other really good accounts of Nazi concentration camp experience, besides Primo Levi’s very impressive books. They are:
Anna Pawelczynska: Values and Violence in Auschwitz: A Sociological Analysis,
and,
Benedikt Kautsky: Teufel und Verdammte: Erfahrungen und Erkenntnisse aus Sieben Jahren in deutschen Konzentrationslagern.
Anna P is, or was a Polish sociologist, and Auschwitz survivor. It’s quite a good book. Kautsky was the son of the famous Austrian social-democratic leader, Karl K., whom Lenin called “the renegade.” I had never heard of Benedikt, and when I happened on the book, which is superb, in a used furniture store here in the Bronx, I e-mailed the Karl-Renner Institut in Vienna, the Austrian SD think tank. They explained who he was. He seems to have been uncommonly astute and a clear observer. He avoids nasty sectarian squabbling with the Communists, for example. He lived until 1960, and was a leader of various social-democratic institutions, and an academic.
Recently, at Michael Pugliese’s suggestion, I read a contemporary analysis of the inner functioning of Nazi concentration camps –
Wolfgang Sofsky: Die Ordnung des Terrors: Das Konzentrationslager.
Sofsky was born only in 1951, but he is a sound and empathic analyst, who seems to have read every description of concentration camp existence. He draws on Kautsky a fair amount, and on many other books available only in German and French. I think the book has been translated. He seems to be a theoretical follower of Bourdieu.
Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
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