When appearing in German wartime documents in the context of the "Holocaust," terms like "special treatment," "special action," and others have usually been interpreted as code words that signify the killing of inmates. While certainly the term "special treatment" in many such documents meant execution, the term need not always have had that meaning in German records. In Special Treatment in Auschwitz, Carlo Mattogno has provided the most thorough study of this textual problem to date. Publishing and interpreting numerous such documents about Auschwitz -- many of them hitherto unknown -- Mattogno is able to show that, while "special" had many different meanings in these documents, not a single one meant "execution." This important study demonstrates that the habitual practice of deciphering an alleged "code language" by assigning homicidal meaning to completely harmless documents -- a key component of the exterminationist historical method -- is no longer tenable.

An account of the experiences of the "Mischlinge" (half-Jews, and Jews in mixed marriages) under the Nazi regime, in Germany and in occupied Europe. Many of them were able to survive the Holocaust as a result of loopholes in the racial laws. Ch. 9 (pp. 185-206) emphasizes the phenomenon of "antisemitic Jews" who justified or assisted Nazi persecution of their own people - e.g. the Verband Nationaldeutscher Juden.

The famous Italian Holocaust survivor Primo Levi informed us in his eyewitness account "Survival in Auschwitz" that a number of sickbays and infirmaries etc. existed in the area of the Auschwitz camp. The present book gives an overview of the camp's organizational and historical development in this regard. For example, there was a change of policy among Himmler and his entourage toward the end of 1942 regarding the main function of Germany's concentration camps. While initially reeducation and punishment were their main focus, exploiting the inmates' productive potential became increasingly important later on. The main reason for this was the ever-increasing needs of the German armed forces for manpower. Another reason for the installation of sanitary facilities were epidemics which emerged repeatedly for a number of reasons and which had to be combatted. In the first part of this book, the author analyzes the inmates' living conditions as well as the various sanitary and medical measures implemented to maintain or restore the inmates' health. The second part explores what happened in particular to those inmates registered at Auschwitz who were "selected" or subject to "special treatment" while disabled or sick. The comprehensive documentation presented shows clearly that everything was tried to cure these inmates, especially under the aegis of Garrison Physician Dr. Wirths. The last part of this book is dedicated to the remarkable personality of Dr. Wirths, the Auschwitz garrison physician since 1942. His reality refutes the current stereotype of SS officers. In this context, the statements by the former communist concentration camp survivor Hermann Langbein are particularly revealing.

The incredible story of the Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist and the woman he loved. Lale Sokolov is well-dressed, a charmer, a ladies' man. He is also a Jew. On the first transport of men from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, Lale immediately stands out to his fellow prisoners. In the camp, he is looked up to, looked out for, and put to work in the privileged position of Tatowierer - the tattooist - to mark his fellow prisoners, forever. One of them is a young woman, Gita, who steals his heart at first glance. His life given new purpose, Lale does his best through the struggle and suffering to use his position for good. This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. It is heart-wrenching, illuminating, and unforgettable. 'Morris climbs into the dark miasma of war and emerges with an extraordinary tale of the power of love' - Leah Kaminsky

Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust. Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz. Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope. This title has Common Core connections. Godwin Books

The first comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration camps In a landmark work of history, Nikolaus Wachsmann offers an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise, seventy years ago, in the spring of 1945. The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone." In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.

A Jewish man recounts his experience as a little boy in Paris during World War II and the Holocaust, as well as his escape and survival in this memoir. On the nights of July 16 and 17, 1942, French police rounded up eleven-year-old Joseph Weismann, his family, and 13,000 other Jews. After being held for five days in appalling conditions in the Vélodrome d’Hiver stadium, Joseph and his family were transported by cattle car to the Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp and brutally separated: all the adults and most of the children were transported on to Auschwitz and certain death, but 1,000 children were left behind to wait for a later train. The French guards told the children left behind that they would soon be reunited with their parents, but Joseph and his new friend, Joe Kogan, chose to risk everything in a daring escape attempt. After eluding the guards and crawling under razor-sharp barbed wire, Joseph found freedom. But how would he survive the rest of the war in Nazi-occupied France and build a life for himself? His problems had just begun. Until he was 80, Joseph Weismann kept his story to himself, giving only the slightest hints of it to his wife and three children. Simone Veil, lawyer, politician, President of the European Parliament, and member of the Constitutional Council of France—herself a survivor of Auschwitz—urged him to tell his story. In the original French version of this book and in Roselyne Bosch’s 2010 film La Rafle, Joseph shares his compelling and terrifying story of the Roundup of the Vél’ d’Hiv and his escape. Now, for the first time in English, Joseph tells the rest of his dramatic story in After the Roundup. “As few others manage, Joseph Weismann’s memoir captures the tension between the great communal torment and the unique personal repercussions of those who endured the Holocaust. This is a boy’s story, except that boy is in hell, faces it, and survives.” —Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s List “Extraordinary . . . and timely. Joseph Weismann’s compelling account of his escape from an internment camp after the notorious Winter Velodrome roundup of Parisian Jews in July 1942 is both a vivid recreation of childhood (he was 11 years old when he spent a tenacious six hours crawling through a barbed wire fence to make his getaway) and a powerful insight into what it is like to be on the receiving end of the demonization of a race or religion.” —Peter Grose, author of A Good Place to Hide