Hitlers Menschenhändler. das Schicksal der «Austauschjuden»
2014; Wiley; Volume: 87; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1756-1183
Autores Tópico(s)German History and Society
ResumoGerman Studies across the DisciplinesAmmann, Thomas, and Stefan Aust. Hitlers Menschenhandler. Das Schicksal der Mustauschjuden». Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 2013. 334 pp. euro24.99 (hardcover).It does not happen every day that a reviewer turns out to be one of the main actors of the book he has been asked to review. This is one of those rare cases. In Hitlers Menschenhandler, I appear frequently as a Holocaust survivor who was rescued from the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen after spending five months there at the age of eleven.Let me start with a small correction and a criticism. The correction: I am not, as the authors claim, from Slovakia, but from Cluj in Transylvania, which belonged to Romania when I was born, was handed to Hungary for services rendered by Hitler in 1940, and returned to Romania, for the same reason, by Stalin in 1945.The criticism: the authors thank the protagonists of the book, a number of Holocaust survivors, for allowing themselves to be interviewed, but they do not mention that these interviews first entered the public domain in a documentary shown on German television. The documentary acknowledged three creators: Ammann, Aust, and Caroline Schmidt, who was responsible for recording the interview with me. In the book, Ammann and Aust rely mainly on the German version ofmy book, Dealingwith Satan. RezsBKasztnersDaringRescue Mission (London: Jonathan Cape 2008): Geschafte mit dem Teufel. Die Tragodie des Judenretters Rezso Kasztner (Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 2010). But despite to some extent also quoting me from Caroline Schmidt's interview for the original documentary, they mention neither that interview nor Caroline Schmidt.It is not widely known that during World War II some were spared the Final Solution in order to be exchanged for German nationals held in enemy countries. With that aim, they were kept alive in Bergen-Belsen, which was not an extermination camp but which became notorious for the lethal consequences of overcrowding and callous neglect. When Belsen in the last months of the war became a hell in which thousands died of starvation and typhus, most of the exchange Jews were still waiting to be exchanged.Basically, the book breaks down into two parts. The first deals with from the Netherlands, including refugees from Germany. The second, somewhat longer and more dramatic, deals with from Hungary, including refugees from East European countries. The obvious link between the two discrete parts is the location Bergen-Belsen and the theme of attempted rescue.Hitler's army invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Anti-Jewish measures began immediately. The were gradually deprived of all their rights and possessions and confined in holding camps before being shipped off to the death camps. The most notorious was Westerbork. From here, between 1942 and 1944, some 97,000 were deported to Auschwitz, Sobibor, and Theresienstadt. About 3,700 others were taken to Bergen-Belsen. They were held in the Sternlager, where they had to wear the yellow star, do hard labor, and suffered ill-treatment. Their backgrounds varied, but they had managed to acquire documents -some genuine, some fictitious-that promised to admit them to Allied or neutral countries. However, in the event, very few escaped that way. Many of them died in Bergen-Belsen; others were liberated by Allied troops either from Bergen-Belsen itself or while being transported to other camps. …
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