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Carregando... The Last Survivor: Legacies of Dachaude Timothy W. Ryback
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. What is disturbing about this book is that the author, a journalist, denounces an old man as an impostor on the basis of his own inconclusive investigation. The fact that Ryback cannot find the proof he is looking for does not give him the right to call Martin Zaidenstadt a fraud. Even if Zaidenstadt was not a survivor at Dachau, his age and European history and whatever Zaidenstadt did go through, would make him a victim of some sort. Besides, what is gained by Ryback's revelation? Throughout the book, Zaidenstadt emerges as pretty harmless. Staff of the memorial site at Dachau speak of him endearingly. Let the old man be, is what the Germans in the book say. The book is a bit of a jumble of related stories, all around Martin Zaidenstadt. The author is clearly on a mission. Some chapters were interesting to read. It is a bit of a scrap book of history. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
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Depicting contemporary Dachau, home of the first Nazi concentration camp, the first gas chamber, and the first crematory oven, proves an illusive task. Timothy Ryback travels to Dachau, looking for the community that inhabits the town today, to find out how the older people live with the memories and how the younger generation deals with the legacy; there he finds Martin Zaidenstadt. While Dachau's residents express vastly divergent ways of and reasons for living in a city coinhabited by ghosts, Ryback finds one daily constant: Martin Zaidenstadt's vigil in front of the camp's brick crematorium. Should you visit the crematorium, Martin will tell you, "My name is Martin Zaidenstadt. I survive this camp. I come here every day for fifty-three years." Martin claims to be a Holocaust survivor; he is both gadfly and guide, a man who embodies the paradox that is Dachau -- a place that was so successful at producing death, that it has become impossible for anyone who resides there to live a normal life. Ryback's inquiry into a place uncovers a person whose keen intelligence, subtle wit, and boundless goodwill help us to understand Dachau as a city unable to forget, yet unwilling to be defined by its abominable past. This is a stunning and passionate portrait. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)940.53History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War IIClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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Timothy W. Ryback spent 8 years traveling to Dachau, home of one of the first concentration camps in Germany. Rybak's aim was to understand what it was like to live in a town with such a horrible history. Upon his first visit the author met Martin Zaidenstadt, a Dachau survivor. Martin spent his days stationed in front of the crematorium at Dachau. He stood, day after after day, telling his story and rebuking the claims of the administrator's of the Dachau site, who claimed that the gas chamber had never been used.
Ryback does tell the stories of the people who currently resided in Dachau. However, Zaidenstadt became an obsession for him. Over 200,000 names were registered as prisoners at Dachau. In trying to confirm Martin's story, the author could find no trace of him in the records. For 8 years Ryback traveled back to Dachau and other cities in Poland and Germany, searching for Martin's lost history.
This is a small book that packs a big punch. It is not for the squeamish. There are many descriptive entries of the atrocities that took place in the camp.
Recommended for those who love a well re-searched non-fiction. ( )