curiosity777's picture
curiosity777 October 30, 2016 - 1:14pm

Ok, so I took a tour to Auschwitz when I visited Krakow. Aside from the fact that Krakow itself is a beautiful city, I started looking around for some authors that survived Holocaust (or Auschwitz, in particular, not necessarily of Jewish origin), found this masterpiece (an old edition) and would like to encounter something I might have missed but is similarly interesting. What sober and well written Holocaust pieces can you recommend? I'm about to start reading the book by Miklos Nyszli (sorry for the spelling, I don't have the book anywhere around now) on the Angel of Death.

EricMBacon's picture
EricMBacon from Vermont is reading The Autobiography of a Corpse November 16, 2016 - 5:44am

Please read Viktor Frankl. He was a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz (I believe). Start with Man's Search for Meaning. 

There isn't much to say about this work. I always assumed that it was one of the most well-known accounts of the Holocaust. And if you really absorb the words and meaning behind Frankl's account and his theory of psychology (Logotherapy- The Will to Meaning) it can change your life.

bethwenn's picture
bethwenn from Milwaukee is reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann November 16, 2016 - 9:59am

"The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski. It's about a young boy who escapes the Germans and wanders from village to village seeking refuge with various odd people who take him in. Kosinski and his family survived in Poland in similar ways during WWII. You will never be the same after reading it. The writing is vivid and beautiful. It's like watching a film. There are dozens of scenes that I will never forget, that I can still picture in my mind's eye. But it's deeply upsetting. You may need to read it at the same time as another, less pessimistic book. I cut doses of it with The Master and Margarita to avoid falling into deep depression.