- Hardcover: 444 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (17 Sep 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300067550
- ISBN-13: 978-0300067552
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 18.8 x 4.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,712,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
The overwhelming horror and scale of the genocide associated with Auschwitz isolates it in the human imagination. In the 1940s, however, this epicentre of the Holocaust was located at the edge of a town of 30,000 that had become the focus of a Germanisation programme involving wholescale urban re-construction, massive industrial investment and ruthless ethnic cleansing. "Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present" elucidates how, step by step, this otherwise ordinary prewar town became Germany's most lethal killing site: a transformation wrought by human beings, mostly German and mostly male. Who were the men who conceived, designed and constructed the death camp? What lay in their minds as they systematically developed a human slaughter house? Using the hundreds of architectural plans that the Nazis, in their haste, omitted to destroy, as well as blueprints and papers in the municipal archive of Auschwitz, the provincial archive of Upper Silesia, and the federal German archives, Robert Jan van Pelt and Deborah Dwork show that the town of Auschwitz and the camp of the same name were the centrepiece of Himmler's ambitious project to recover in Nazi-ruled Poland the German legacy of the Tuetonic Knights and Frederick the Great. Analysing the close ties between the 700-year history of the town and the five-year evolution of the concentration camp in its suburbs, they offer an interpretation of the origins and creation of the death camp. Drawing on oral histories of survivors, memoirs, depositions and diaries, the authors explore its ever more murderous impact on the daily lives of its inmates. A work of scholarship and narration, this is a history of the site that has come to epitomise evil.
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AUSCHWITZ USED TO BE AN ORDINARY TOWN. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book skillfully combines a history of German influence in the East with a detailed look at the death and labor camps of Auschwitz. Using the architectural records left behind as well as statements of people who were there to outline the story, the authors trace the development and changes of the Auschwitz camps from 1939 to the present day. The skillful use of architectural plans provides insight into the changing purposes the camp adapted to in its short but terrible life. Also, the authors trace the German influence in the area back to the founding of the town in 1270 and relate the camp's shifting purpose to the territorial goals of the Germans in the East both before and during the war.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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12 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Insightful use of architectural records
3 July 1999
Format:Paperback
This book skillfully combines a history of German influence in the East with a detailed look at the death and labor camps of Auschwitz. Using the architectural records left behind as well as statements of people who were there to outline the story, the authors trace the development and changes of the Auschwitz camps from 1939 to the present day. The skillful use of architectural plans provides insight into the changing purposes the camp adapted to in its short but terrible life. Also, the authors trace the German influence in the area back to the founding of the town in 1270 and relate the camp's shifting purpose to the territorial goals of the Germans in the East both before and during the war.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Very analytical and factual
3 Jan 2011
Format:Hardcover
I found the book very well laid out in discussing the history of the region. It helped a great deal in bringing into sharper focus the motivation the German people had to the region even though Auschwitz laid inside the Austro-Hungarian Empire prio to it being allocated to Poland after WWI.
It was useful in noting the anger Germany had in finally securing the land 'lost' per Brest-Litovsk in April 1918 only to see the reverse in November 1918.
The sole problem I had with the writers was there constantly stating 'time' without a year i.e. they would say in April (and never give the year). This was very confusing after June 1941 with the commencement of Barbarossa.
I was saddened to read a reviewer who falls into the Institute For Historical Review i.e. this never happened. Ok then what did happen to all those Jews?
It was useful in noting the anger Germany had in finally securing the land 'lost' per Brest-Litovsk in April 1918 only to see the reverse in November 1918.
The sole problem I had with the writers was there constantly stating 'time' without a year i.e. they would say in April (and never give the year). This was very confusing after June 1941 with the commencement of Barbarossa.
I was saddened to read a reviewer who falls into the Institute For Historical Review i.e. this never happened. Ok then what did happen to all those Jews?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Beyond Auschwitz Itself: A Good Historical Overview of German Ospolitik
3 Dec 2008
Format:Hardcover
Instead of repeating other reviewers, let's focus on undeveloped content. To begin with, it is interesting to note that the post-WWII Odra-Nysa (Oder-Neisse) boundary coincided with the east-most deployment of Germans before the year 1200 A.D. (p. 24).
"Nationalism" nowadays is often a dirty word. In actuality, there are different kinds of nationalism, only some of which are repulsive. While discussing the 19th-century German rule over western Poles, Dwork and van Pelt comment: "What had been a domain of encounter became a battlefield where the imperial and integral nationalism of the Germans faced the functional and emancipatory nationalism of the Poles." (p. 48).
Contrary to those who misrepresent the Germans as voting Hitler into power merely in order to avenge and rectify the "injustices" of Versailles, the authors recognize the fact that Hitler plainly wrote in MEIN KAMPF about his plans for a massive war for lebensraum against the Slavic east. What's more, this was not only well known to Germans in general, but enthusiastically supported by them. (pp. 82-83). (While it is technically true that Hitler didn't win an absolute majority, it begs the question why the Nationalist and Catholic deputies deliberately chose to push him over the top (p. 96), giving him totalitarian rule.)
Dwork and van Pelt realize that the Auschwitz camp was created for Poles. (p. 168, 173, 181). Its conversion into an extermination camp for Jews came much later. Nor was the latter a foregone conclusion. In fact, the Final Solution first envisioned the mass resettlement of Europe's Jews to the Lublin-area, then Madagascar, then to German-ruled Russia--the latter similar to the planned eastward mass-resettlement of Poles (Generalplan Ost). The decision to systematically exterminate the Jews was made only after the Red Army had failed to collapse as expected, and the region for planned resettlement of Jews remained under Soviet control. (p. 287, 293).
Much has been said (e. g., by Jan T. Gross) about Polish "greed" in acquiring post-Jewish properties, and Polish hostility to Jewish survivors showing up to reclaim their properties. Inadvertently, the authors correct these misconceptions while discussing postwar Auschwitz: "Practical and theoretical considerations prompted the severance of the stucco barracks from the memorial camp. THERE WAS A CRIPPLING LACK OF HOUSING IN POLAND IN 1945, and these structures were spacious, well-built, intact, and available for immediate occupancy." (p. 360; emphasis added).
The authors touch on the postwar history of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and, while discussing the controversy about the Carmelite convent and the crosses, they refer to the Christian symbols as expressing triumphalism over the Jewish victims. Using the same reasoning, shouldn't the Stars of David be considered a form of triumphalism over the Christian victims of this camp?
"Nationalism" nowadays is often a dirty word. In actuality, there are different kinds of nationalism, only some of which are repulsive. While discussing the 19th-century German rule over western Poles, Dwork and van Pelt comment: "What had been a domain of encounter became a battlefield where the imperial and integral nationalism of the Germans faced the functional and emancipatory nationalism of the Poles." (p. 48).
Contrary to those who misrepresent the Germans as voting Hitler into power merely in order to avenge and rectify the "injustices" of Versailles, the authors recognize the fact that Hitler plainly wrote in MEIN KAMPF about his plans for a massive war for lebensraum against the Slavic east. What's more, this was not only well known to Germans in general, but enthusiastically supported by them. (pp. 82-83). (While it is technically true that Hitler didn't win an absolute majority, it begs the question why the Nationalist and Catholic deputies deliberately chose to push him over the top (p. 96), giving him totalitarian rule.)
Dwork and van Pelt realize that the Auschwitz camp was created for Poles. (p. 168, 173, 181). Its conversion into an extermination camp for Jews came much later. Nor was the latter a foregone conclusion. In fact, the Final Solution first envisioned the mass resettlement of Europe's Jews to the Lublin-area, then Madagascar, then to German-ruled Russia--the latter similar to the planned eastward mass-resettlement of Poles (Generalplan Ost). The decision to systematically exterminate the Jews was made only after the Red Army had failed to collapse as expected, and the region for planned resettlement of Jews remained under Soviet control. (p. 287, 293).
Much has been said (e. g., by Jan T. Gross) about Polish "greed" in acquiring post-Jewish properties, and Polish hostility to Jewish survivors showing up to reclaim their properties. Inadvertently, the authors correct these misconceptions while discussing postwar Auschwitz: "Practical and theoretical considerations prompted the severance of the stucco barracks from the memorial camp. THERE WAS A CRIPPLING LACK OF HOUSING IN POLAND IN 1945, and these structures were spacious, well-built, intact, and available for immediate occupancy." (p. 360; emphasis added).
The authors touch on the postwar history of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and, while discussing the controversy about the Carmelite convent and the crosses, they refer to the Christian symbols as expressing triumphalism over the Jewish victims. Using the same reasoning, shouldn't the Stars of David be considered a form of triumphalism over the Christian victims of this camp?
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