The most recommended books about Auschwitz Concentration Camp

This is an older book, but such an important one! It was first published in 1993 when the author was commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) to create a book and an exhibit for younger children who would be touring the museum. Carol Matas is really one of the first authors to write about this time in history and to do so in a way this is accessible for young readers. She has paved the way for authors like me to continue telling these important stories. By the way, if you visit the USHMM, you can still see the Daniel's Story exhibit on the main floor of the museum. 

I am crazy about this book, as this book almost made me crazy (in a good sense).

It tells the story of one of the most famous holocaust survivors and writers and how the nightmares from the concentration camp, known as Auschwitz, haunted this survivor. He suffered for years until he was treated with LSD. His mind was changed for the better. He stopped dreaming about the suffering he had experienced, and this was done by changing his consciousness.

It shows how much our mind is open to improvements and what is the real power and benefit of practicing shamanism and altered states of consciousness. And how it worked for many years for our ancestors, and how we can benefit from it nowadays. Such a powerful and hope-making book!

The Zone of Interest, a novel by Martin Amis, tells a story that might not be to everyone’s taste—a love triangle among two Nazi officers and an officer’s wife, against the backdrop of the death camp in Auschwitz.

The late novelist’s trademark cunning and wit is a perfect counterpoint to the obviously somber material. No one would expect that a story set in Auschwitz might contain piercing (and very dark) humor, but Amis pulls it off.

His prose is jumpy, elliptical, highbrow, and lowbrow throughout. The reader may be surprised to find herself sympathizing with the officers at times, while marveling at the horrible compromises forced upon a concentration camp prisoner. The Zone of Interest is a triumph of tone, voice, and pyrotechnic prose. 

This haunting collection of short stories left a faint chill in my bones for weeks—very aptly, given its name. None of the seven tales are conclusive, or wrapped up neatly. It feels as if there is always a kernel inside each one that remains tucked out of sight, no matter how many outer layers are peeled off—or in the case of one of the stories, no matter how much hide is flayed away.

David Golder embodies the classic “rags to riches” story fueled by insecurity and greed. He is the breadwinner of a morally bankrupt family that spends and cheats openly on him, and whose members blame him when he is unable to bring home the bacon anymore. A tightly-woven plot, with business deals that take place offstage but which impinge strongly on everyone, especially Golder—who is heroic in business, yet tragic in life. You might find his Russian negotiation tactics, replete with temper tantrums, of particular interest—they are still in use today. Written in short chapters and with cutting dialogue, this book carried Némirovsky to international fame in 1929; however, being an assimilated French Jew, prominence attracted Nazi persecution, culminating in her death at Auschwitz. 

The Periodic Table is by Primo Levi, a chemist and one of the few thousand Italian Jews who were not successfully hidden during World War II. If you are curious about the pre-war culture of the Italkim (Italian Jews), this book is a window into a beautifully rendered lost world.

Primo Levi was ultimately imprisoned in Auschwitz, where he was sort of adopted by an illiterate Italian peasant who was swept up in the forced labor sweeps. The two of them were liberated and walked back to Italy together after the war.

What makes this book extraordinary is the way Primo Levi teaches you a little chemistry with every chapter, as he keeps his own sanity by finding a scientific worldview that is out of reach of the brutality of the concentration camps.  

No one can truly know what life was like for Jews under the Nazis. We cannot feel the constant terror and inhumanity imposed upon their Jewish victims. We cannot hear their constant pleas, moans, and screams. We cannot smell the stench of filth, sickness, and death. Nevertheless, Joseph Gershowitz manages to take us as close as we can to his suffering in his absolutely riveting first-hand account of life in the Nazi’s concentration camps. On the Borderline of Extermination is a must-read for understanding the cruelty, barbarism, and inhumanity of the Germans and their all too willing helpers.

Ever since I’ve been engaged in interreligious and peacebuilding work, I’ve struggled with the question of whether religion is the cause of violence or its solution. This book on proceedings of an Auschwitz conference in Poland does a deep dive into religion being both a cause and victim of violence. It examines where religious violence fits into other forms of violence as well as the roots of peace in various religious traditions. Its nuanced and revealing essays were an enormous help to me in formulating my own thinking and helped educate me in the roots of international human rights law. Not being a historian myself, the essays gave me a grounding in events about which I had only superficial knowledge. I personally know and have worked with a number of the contributors. As such, I can vouch for their authority and the esteem in which they are held.

My book is theoretical, on the nature of heroes. Reed’s book is the perfect complement to it. It provides brief bios for numerous heroes—many who are famous and many who are not but should be. One vivid example of the latter is Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl. Many people realize that Winston Churchill recognized early on the evil of Hitler and the need to oppose National Socialism. But few know that the diminutive Duchess realized it sooner, that she warned Churchill, that she had the full translated speeches of Hitler sent to him, that she stood up to Neville Chamberlain, head of her own party, and that, in defense of liberty, she fearlessly warned the West against the dangers of both the Soviets and the Nazis. Lawrence Reed’s book is replete with true stories of such little known heroes.

There are no spare words here, and I dare you just to read one page.

I enjoyed McCrina’s earlier books, but with each new book she writes, her craft keeps on getting tighter.

She’s always written about those bits of WWII and the Cold War that no one seems to know about. She’s always done it with authority. But with this book, my gosh. So breathless. My eyes were glued to the page, and I was powerless to do anything other than read it. I didn’t even get up to pee.