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Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers
Filip Muller came to Auschwitz with one of the earliest transports from Slovakia in April 1942 and began working in the gassing installations and crematoria in May. He was still alive when the gassings ceased in November 1944. He saw millions come and disappear; by sheer luck he survived. Muller is neither a historian nor a psychologist; he is a source--one of the few prisoners who saw the Jewish people die and lived to tell about it. Eyewitness Auschwitz is one of the key documents of the Holocaust.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Filip Müller
5 books8 followersFilip Müller (born 1922, Sered, Czechoslovakia) was one of very few Sonderkommandos to have survived Auschwitz, the largest Nazi German extermination camp. He witnessed the exterminations and gassings of millions of Jews and lived to write one of the key documents of the Holocaust. Published in 1979, Müller's Eyewitness Auschwitz - Three Years in the Gas Chambers was his first-hand account of the events behind the walls in the Auschwitz camps.
He was brought up into a country with increasing Nazi propaganda, where it was not long until tens of thousands of Jews were deported out of Czechoslovakia into the Auschwitz camps in Poland. In April 1942, Filip Müller, who was only twenty years old, came with one of the earliest transports to Auschwitz and was given "Prisoner Number 29236". Assigned to work in the construction of crematoriums and installation of gas chambers, Müller witnessed "the families, the townships and the cities of Jewish people come", and was ordered burn the dead bodies in crematories. His extraordinary situation of cremating corpses was the only reason the Nazis kept him alive. Müller and other workers had no choice but to do what they were told, as there was no choice since the Nazis would never let them free to reveal the secrets of their mass gassings and cremations.
The arrivals of innocent men, women and children who entered Auschwitz each day was something that Müller could not have avoided, and yet he continued to pretend to them that they were somewhere safe as he led them to the gas chambers. His role after the mass gassings was to enter the chambers with other workers and strip bodies of their clothes. These clothes were then disinfected and any valuables found in them were given to SS officials.
After realizing what he was doing to the thousands of Jews each and every day for nearly three years, Müller admitted in his book that he did try to commit suicide by trying to enter the gas chambers himself. In his book, he recounted a story of how he saw a group of countrymen singing the Hatikvah and the Czech national anthem before they entered the gas chamber. He decided to join the group but before he entered the gas chamber, a woman said to him: "So you want to die? But that's senseless. Your death won't give us back our lives. That's no way. You must get out of here alive, you must bear witness to our suffering and to the injustice done to us." Despite the horrific actions that he had no alternative but to participate in, Müller realized that he had to stay alive because he and other workers were the only survivors that had to live and tell the real story behind the Holocaust.
Until January 1945, Müller worked as a prisoner in the Sonderkommando and was liberated in May 1945. Since 1969, Müller has lived in Western Europe.
Müller lived to testify at the Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt in 1964, and his testimony was published as one chapter of The Death Factory, a Holocaust documentation in 1966.
He was brought up into a country with increasing Nazi propaganda, where it was not long until tens of thousands of Jews were deported out of Czechoslovakia into the Auschwitz camps in Poland. In April 1942, Filip Müller, who was only twenty years old, came with one of the earliest transports to Auschwitz and was given "Prisoner Number 29236". Assigned to work in the construction of crematoriums and installation of gas chambers, Müller witnessed "the families, the townships and the cities of Jewish people come", and was ordered burn the dead bodies in crematories. His extraordinary situation of cremating corpses was the only reason the Nazis kept him alive. Müller and other workers had no choice but to do what they were told, as there was no choice since the Nazis would never let them free to reveal the secrets of their mass gassings and cremations.
The arrivals of innocent men, women and children who entered Auschwitz each day was something that Müller could not have avoided, and yet he continued to pretend to them that they were somewhere safe as he led them to the gas chambers. His role after the mass gassings was to enter the chambers with other workers and strip bodies of their clothes. These clothes were then disinfected and any valuables found in them were given to SS officials.
After realizing what he was doing to the thousands of Jews each and every day for nearly three years, Müller admitted in his book that he did try to commit suicide by trying to enter the gas chambers himself. In his book, he recounted a story of how he saw a group of countrymen singing the Hatikvah and the Czech national anthem before they entered the gas chamber. He decided to join the group but before he entered the gas chamber, a woman said to him: "So you want to die? But that's senseless. Your death won't give us back our lives. That's no way. You must get out of here alive, you must bear witness to our suffering and to the injustice done to us." Despite the horrific actions that he had no alternative but to participate in, Müller realized that he had to stay alive because he and other workers were the only survivors that had to live and tell the real story behind the Holocaust.
Until January 1945, Müller worked as a prisoner in the Sonderkommando and was liberated in May 1945. Since 1969, Müller has lived in Western Europe.
Müller lived to testify at the Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt in 1964, and his testimony was published as one chapter of The Death Factory, a Holocaust documentation in 1966.
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February 19, 2011
I've visited Auschwitz. I've walked the stark grounds with a shaking feeling of anger too great to express at the sheer arrogant absurdity of it all. The practical idiotic mindset and machine which the Nazis created to perpetrate such unspeakable crimes, yet rather ordinary people allowed themselves to be manipulated into doing so and rationalized the acts. And then you have Filip, a prisoner, who with chained hands was forced to help turn the cogs for a time.
I've an extensive library of Holocaust works of all kinds. Some of the most notable and controversial I have on my shelves. Personal accounts I keep separate because they are separate in my mind. All of them can be heartbreaking, and it's a grim subject and interest, but still necessary for me. Only a few, of which this is one, have I had to stop several times, close its covers and cover my face and simply weep.
To name it superlative is almost a travesty. In it's sheer power of catacylsmic emotion it is not surpassed, but for me the point is not simply to read for information sake or even a shock factor: it is the depth of Filip's emotional and spiritual suffering which binds the reader to the writer. I've never read anything quite like it.
There is not the eloquence of others like Primo Levi, or the almost direct request for empathy others have presented in their memoirs. Müller wrote it as he recalled. Only that. It needed nothing else. It was enough and far beyond imagining.
I've an extensive library of Holocaust works of all kinds. Some of the most notable and controversial I have on my shelves. Personal accounts I keep separate because they are separate in my mind. All of them can be heartbreaking, and it's a grim subject and interest, but still necessary for me. Only a few, of which this is one, have I had to stop several times, close its covers and cover my face and simply weep.
To name it superlative is almost a travesty. In it's sheer power of catacylsmic emotion it is not surpassed, but for me the point is not simply to read for information sake or even a shock factor: it is the depth of Filip's emotional and spiritual suffering which binds the reader to the writer. I've never read anything quite like it.
There is not the eloquence of others like Primo Levi, or the almost direct request for empathy others have presented in their memoirs. Müller wrote it as he recalled. Only that. It needed nothing else. It was enough and far beyond imagining.
July 17, 2020
Doubt there are many more as harrowing a book as this one. Doubt there are many more as important either.
And I thought the Nazis from Jean-François Steiner's book 'Treblinka' were bad enough.
Enter Hauptscharführer Otto Moll at Auschwitz-Birkenau, who turned out to be just about the most evil and detestable human being I think I've ever come across.
And his defense at the war crimes trial - "An order is an order!" Yeah right. As if he were told to throw babies, which were very much alive, into a pit of burning fat. Or play teasing games with his victims, which was only ever going to end one way. At least some of the other Nazi scum just got on with the job at hand, in a chilling and methodical manner. But nope, he just had to have some fun as well.
Unsurprisingly Hitler gave him the War Merit Cross.
In hell the devil gave him a gold star.
February 1, 2019
brutally honest ... so very difficult to read
January 14, 2023
I wouldn't say I enjoyed this book as such - I don't think one is supposed to say they enjoy reading this kind of thing - but this was a very insightful - and graphic - account of what life was like in the death camps of what the Nazi's dubbed 'The Final Solution'.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about the Holocaust. In fact, I think everyone should read this so that this awful stain on human history is never forgotten and more so that this is never allowed to happen again.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about the Holocaust. In fact, I think everyone should read this so that this awful stain on human history is never forgotten and more so that this is never allowed to happen again.
May 9, 2014
I’ve read many Holocaust memoirs, all of them terrible, heart-breaking and shocking in their own way, but Eyewitness Auschwitz stands out for several other reasons.
It is the story of Filip Muller, who spent more than two years in Auschwitz, and saw some of the worst things that human beings can do to each other – he worked in the gas chambers as a Sonderkommando – responsible for the cremation of thousands and thousands of his fellow Jews.
What makes Eyewitness Auschwitz particularly unique is Filip’s focus – there is very little about his life before World War II, how he came to be in Auschwitz and he tells his story in a rather unemotional way. To some that may sound like it makes this is a difficult book to connect and sympathise with, but in fact I found that it made it more intense, more shocking and even more emotional for me as a reader.
Filip joins the Sonderkommando right at the very beginning of the book – there isn’t much about his life in Auschwitz prior, but it tells a very important story. From removing and sorting the belongings of those that had just been executed, to moving bodies and finally feeding them into the crematorium, every part of his story is important – it’s the kind of story that’s incredibly difficult to read at times, but it’s also very addictive.
Holocaust memoirs aren’t for every reader, but Eyewitness Auschwitz is an important book that deserves far more recognition than it gets. Filip not only lives through the terror of not knowing when he will die, but also has a part to play in the destruction of his own people and the fact that he makes it through without completely losing his sanity is a real testament to the strength of the human mind, and how compartmentalisation and suppression of traumatic events comes without even trying. It’s a survival instinct, and although at times he appears almost cold in his storytelling, it’s very much a reflection of how he survived.
If you have an interest in the Holocaust, or just want to read a memoir that focus so intently on the subject matter it’s difficult to emotionally remove yourself from the story, I highly highly recommend Eyewitness Auschwitz.
It is the story of Filip Muller, who spent more than two years in Auschwitz, and saw some of the worst things that human beings can do to each other – he worked in the gas chambers as a Sonderkommando – responsible for the cremation of thousands and thousands of his fellow Jews.
What makes Eyewitness Auschwitz particularly unique is Filip’s focus – there is very little about his life before World War II, how he came to be in Auschwitz and he tells his story in a rather unemotional way. To some that may sound like it makes this is a difficult book to connect and sympathise with, but in fact I found that it made it more intense, more shocking and even more emotional for me as a reader.
Filip joins the Sonderkommando right at the very beginning of the book – there isn’t much about his life in Auschwitz prior, but it tells a very important story. From removing and sorting the belongings of those that had just been executed, to moving bodies and finally feeding them into the crematorium, every part of his story is important – it’s the kind of story that’s incredibly difficult to read at times, but it’s also very addictive.
Holocaust memoirs aren’t for every reader, but Eyewitness Auschwitz is an important book that deserves far more recognition than it gets. Filip not only lives through the terror of not knowing when he will die, but also has a part to play in the destruction of his own people and the fact that he makes it through without completely losing his sanity is a real testament to the strength of the human mind, and how compartmentalisation and suppression of traumatic events comes without even trying. It’s a survival instinct, and although at times he appears almost cold in his storytelling, it’s very much a reflection of how he survived.
If you have an interest in the Holocaust, or just want to read a memoir that focus so intently on the subject matter it’s difficult to emotionally remove yourself from the story, I highly highly recommend Eyewitness Auschwitz.
January 31, 2019
I have an interest in the Holocaust for many years. I'm not Jewish, I'm not German, I don't know anyone who was in the concentration camps but I have such a desire to read accounts of that time. I always think the stories I read will be a disappointment because I keep thinking the books and memoirs I read will be repetitive, but they never are. And this one was no different. It had a new perspective on the atrocities of Auschwitz.
Filip Muller is the author of this personal memoir, a man who spent approximately 2 years, 7 months, in Auschwitz. He becomes part of the Sonderkommando when he arrives and continues throughout. He's not someone who "gladly" helped with the process, execution and disposal of 1000's of Jews, but he is someone who did so. It is an emotional read because I can't read anything of this nature and not reflect on the human need for survival, how one human being can commit such horrible acts on other humans as the Germans did, and I believe that it's important to remember such events so we can look for signs that these types of things are happening in the world and be a part of (hopefully) preventing them and not being blinded to horrific history in the making.
Filip Muller is the author of this personal memoir, a man who spent approximately 2 years, 7 months, in Auschwitz. He becomes part of the Sonderkommando when he arrives and continues throughout. He's not someone who "gladly" helped with the process, execution and disposal of 1000's of Jews, but he is someone who did so. It is an emotional read because I can't read anything of this nature and not reflect on the human need for survival, how one human being can commit such horrible acts on other humans as the Germans did, and I believe that it's important to remember such events so we can look for signs that these types of things are happening in the world and be a part of (hopefully) preventing them and not being blinded to horrific history in the making.
December 5, 2025
To say that Filip Müller’s account is harrowing, horrifying, terrifying, gut wrenching, painful is to say nothing. There are no words to describe what he went through and, more importantly, what he witnessed.
After being deported from Slovakia in April 1942, Müller was assigned to the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz (I) where he worked in the crematoria and gassing installation. Later, when the new installations were functional in Auschwitz (II) Birkenau he was moved there. He was part of the Sonderkommando until the killing has stopped in late 1944 and later was part of the death march from Auschwitz, shortly before the Soviets liberated what remained of the camp. Few from the Sonderkommando have survived to tell the story. The workers of the killing squads were periodically selected and killed. Even Müller can’t explain his survival, especially since he was one of the first members in a Sonderkommando.
In the Sonderkommando people survived the horrors by disconnecting. They were preoccupied with their day-to-day survival. They organized [camp slang for stealing or scrounging] useful things left by the victims (foods, valuables, money, diamonds) in order to barter and bribe the guards. They tried to organize a mass revolt (which occurred somewhat by chance and was forced by circumstance; although other accounts indicate that it was coordinated) and escape (which never came). They were better nourished and isolated from the rest of the prisoners. The SS kept them separated in order to hide their atrocities and to keep appearances for other prisoners.
He witnessed everything. The evolution of the extermination process, from earliest stages to its peak efficiency, the transports and the selection, the deceptive lies the SS used to keep their victims calm, emptying of the gas chambers and the removal of the corpses, the searching of bodies for hidden valuables (gold teeth, etc.) and the cremation process itself, the building of the pits, the burning in open air, as well as incredible, unfathomable acts of cruelty. There is no point in describing, Müller does it best, with no flourishes, metaphors, or embellishments. He writes as he saw everything.
Something broke in me after reading. I am ashamed to be part of the human race. I have read before many accounts from other Holocaust survivors. But this was really something else. There were times in which I felt physically sick (I had saved some of those descriptions, but will not share them here). Should be required reading, for any age, despite (or even because) of how sincere and stark the account is. This is not a book; it is a document.
The chapter describing the extermination of the Family Camp (Familienlager) is extremely haunting.
After being deported from Slovakia in April 1942, Müller was assigned to the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz (I) where he worked in the crematoria and gassing installation. Later, when the new installations were functional in Auschwitz (II) Birkenau he was moved there. He was part of the Sonderkommando until the killing has stopped in late 1944 and later was part of the death march from Auschwitz, shortly before the Soviets liberated what remained of the camp. Few from the Sonderkommando have survived to tell the story. The workers of the killing squads were periodically selected and killed. Even Müller can’t explain his survival, especially since he was one of the first members in a Sonderkommando.
In the Sonderkommando people survived the horrors by disconnecting. They were preoccupied with their day-to-day survival. They organized [camp slang for stealing or scrounging] useful things left by the victims (foods, valuables, money, diamonds) in order to barter and bribe the guards. They tried to organize a mass revolt (which occurred somewhat by chance and was forced by circumstance; although other accounts indicate that it was coordinated) and escape (which never came). They were better nourished and isolated from the rest of the prisoners. The SS kept them separated in order to hide their atrocities and to keep appearances for other prisoners.
He witnessed everything. The evolution of the extermination process, from earliest stages to its peak efficiency, the transports and the selection, the deceptive lies the SS used to keep their victims calm, emptying of the gas chambers and the removal of the corpses, the searching of bodies for hidden valuables (gold teeth, etc.) and the cremation process itself, the building of the pits, the burning in open air, as well as incredible, unfathomable acts of cruelty. There is no point in describing, Müller does it best, with no flourishes, metaphors, or embellishments. He writes as he saw everything.
“Soaked to the skin, barefoot and covered from head to foot in mud and blood we climbed into the ambulance. The emblem of the International Red Cross seemed a symbol of grotesque mockery: we were convinced that there was no power on earth which could put an end to this diabolical nightmare. After what we had gone through that day the spark of life which still glimmered within us had dimmed.” (p. 26)
“While he was praying he gave us a signal when it was time for us to rise. Every time he nodded his head after a certain passage, we responded by saying ‘Amen’. To me it seemed sheer madness to pray in Auschwitz, and absurd to believe in God in this place. In any other situation and in any other place I should not have taken Fischl seriously. But here, on the border-line between life and death, we obediently followed his example, possibly because we had nothing else left or because we felt strengthened by his faith.” (p. 29)
“And how were we to act in this situation? Was there anything at all we could do? For we knew only too well what was going to happen to these people within the next hour. We stood rooted against the wall, paralysed by a feeling of impotence and the certainty of their and our inexorable fate. Alas, there was no power on earth which could have saved these poor innocent wretches. They had been condemned to death by a megalomaniac dictator who had set himself up to be judge and jury. Hitler and his henchmen had never made a secret of their attitude to the Jews nor of their avowed intention to exterminate them like vermin. The whole world knew it, and knowing it remained silent; was not their silence equivalent to consent? It was considerations like these which led my companions and me to the conviction that the world consented to what was happening here before our eyes.” (p. 36)
“Would anything have been changed in the course of events if any of us had stepped out and, facing the crowd, had shouted: ‘Do not be deceived, men and women, you are taking your last walk, a terrible death in the gas chamber awaits you!’ […] What, at that moment, was more important: a few hundred men and women, still alive but facing imminent death from which there was no saving them, or a handful of eyewitnesses, one or two of whom might, at the price of suffering and denial of self, survive to bear witness against the murderers some day?” (p. 37)
“But even we, the hardened prisoners of the Sonderkommando, invariably shuddered at the sight of corpses which from time to time were brought to the crematorium from Katowice. They came in wooden boxes and were delivered by a car of the Katowice Gestapo. When the boxes were opened we usually found two pale, bloodless bodies at whose feet lay their decapitated heads.” (p. 46)
“A team of about thirty was building the new chimney, the majority of them Jewish prisoners. One, who came from Slovakia like myself, told me that my father was in a transport which had recently arrived from the concentration camp of Lublin. At once I began a hectic search for him. When I had found out in which block he was housed I managed, with the help of dollars and diamonds I had organized, to bribe the Kapo of the bricklayers’ team. He agreed to include my father in the team which was working on the chimney. One morning as I was busy removing cinders on a wheelbarrow I met my father in the Kapo’s little wooden hut. He neither knew nor suspected what kind of work his son was engaged in. In a state of happy excitement at seeing me again, he embraced me, stroking my cheeks and repeating over and over, his voice trembling with emotion: ‘My dear boy, I was looking for you all over the place and felt sure I would find you among the musicians of the camp orchestra. I knew that’s where you’d be.’ Then he turned to a prisoner who was standing next to him and added with satisfaction tinged with a certain pride: ‘What a good thing that my Filip is such a splendid fiddle player. At least that’ll save him from the worst.’
I could not bear to stay any longer. What could I have said to my father, this good and honest Jew who still put his trust in the truthfulness of his fellow men?” (p. 47)
“I met my father a few more times. Despite all the help and assistance I managed to give him I perceived that he was hardly able to keep on his feet. I saw that he was feverish. From his unnaturally bright eyes and cracked lips it was easy to diagnose that he had typhus. A few days later when the trolley arrived from the hospital, my father’s body was among the dead. My fellow prisoners bore his corpse to the crematorium and placed it on the trolley in the cremation room. In front of the blazing ovens a team-mate recited the Kaddish.” (p. 48)
“The only way in which this death factory [in Birkenau] differed from the one in Auschwitz was its size. Its fifteen huge ovens, working non-stop, could cremate more than 3,000 corpses daily. Bearing in mind that scarcely more than 100 metres away there was another crematorium with the same capacity, and still another 400 metres further on the two smaller crematoria 4 and 5, with eight ovens each, one was forced to conclude that civilization had come to an end. And yet, whoever wanted to stay alive had to ignore the detestable reality and the conditions under which he was forced to live, however violently he loathed them.” (p. 59)
“I was watching a young mother. First she took off her shoes, then the shoes of her small daughter. Then she removed her stockings, then the stockings of the little girl. All the time she endeavoured to answer the child’s questions steadily. When she asked: ‘Mummy, why are we undressing?’ her mother replied: ‘Because we must.’ When the little girl went on to ask: ‘Is the doctor going to examine me, and make me well again?’ her sorrowful mother replied: ‘He will, my darling, soon you will be well, and then we’ll all be happy.’ It cost the unfortunate woman all her self-control to utter these words. She was struggling to go on talking to her beloved child quite normally to spare her the terror of her imminent death. In these last few minutes the young mother had aged fifty years. What were her innermost thoughts at this moment? Was she remembering her own youth, her home town, her parents’ house or the brief days of her marriage?” (p. 72)
Something broke in me after reading. I am ashamed to be part of the human race. I have read before many accounts from other Holocaust survivors. But this was really something else. There were times in which I felt physically sick (I had saved some of those descriptions, but will not share them here). Should be required reading, for any age, despite (or even because) of how sincere and stark the account is. This is not a book; it is a document.
“After some time we came to regard anybody arriving at the crematorium as doomed to die. Once the crematorium gate was shut behind them there was no way out and no miracle that could have saved them. It was constant confrontation with atrocities, the thousandfold murders we witnessed daily, and our own impotence to prevent them which led us to adopt this cynical attitude.” (p. 74)
“Thus it was decreed that the most economical and fuel-saving procedure would be to burn the bodies of a well-nourished man and an emaciated woman, or vice versa, together with that of a child, because, as the experiments had established, in this combination, once they had caught fire, the dead would continue to burn without any further coke being required.
As the number of people being gassed grew apace, the four crematoria in Birkenau, even though they were working round the clock with two shifts, could no longer cope with their workload.” (p. 99)
“Now, when I watched my fellow countrymen walk into the gas chamber, brave, proud and determined, I asked myself what sort of life it would be for me in the unlikely event of my getting out of the camp alive. […] It would simply not be possible to pick up the threads of my former happy and carefree life. In our house, once the centre of my existence, there would be strangers. In the Jewish school where I knew every nook and cranny there would be silence. And what would have become of the synagogue where my grandfather would take me on the sabbath? No doubt it had been ransacked and turned into a gymnasium or some such secular building. Strange to say, at that moment I felt quite free from that tormenting fear of death which had often almost overwhelmed me before. I had never yet contemplated the possibility of taking my own life, but now I was determined to share the fate of my countrymen.” (p. 111)
The chapter describing the extermination of the Family Camp (Familienlager) is extremely haunting.
“The atmosphere in the dimly lit gas chamber was tense and depressing. Death had come menacingly close. It was only minutes away. No memory, no trace of any of us would remain. Once more people embraced. Parents were hugging their children so violently that it almost broke my heart. Suddenly a few girls, naked and in the full bloom of youth, came up to me. They stood in front of me without a word, gazing at me deep in thought and shaking their heads uncomprehendingly. At last one of them plucked up courage and spoke to me: ‘We understand that you have chosen to die with us of your own free will, and we have come to tell you that we think your decision pointless: for it helps no one.’ She went on: ‘We must die, but you still have a chance to save your life. You have to return to the camp and tell everybody about our last hours,’ she commanded. ‘You have to explain to them that they must free themselves from any illusions. They ought to fight, that’s better than dying here helplessly. It’ll be easier for them, since they have no children. As for you, perhaps you’ll survive this terrible tragedy and then you must tell everybody what happened to you.” (p. 113)
“There were now nine of these large pits in addition to the crematorium ovens, making it possible to burn an almost unlimited number of corpses. All these installations originated in the brain of mass murderer Moll who had succeeded in turning a small corner of the earth’s surface into something of such unspeakable vileness that it made Dante’s Inferno appear like a pleasure garden.” (p. 133)
“Since the previous night 10,000 people had perished in the three gas chambers of crematorium 5 alone, while on the site of bunker 5 with its four gas chambers corpses were burnt in four pits. In addition, in crematoria 2, 3 and 4 with a total of five gas chambers and thirty-eight ovens work went on at full speed. Taking this kind of ‘plant capacity’ into consideration it will be readily understood how it was possible to exterminate about 400,000 Hungarian Jews within a few weeks. (p. 143)
“The long march across the snow-covered landscape gave me a chance to ponder the events of the last few days. I still could not quite grasp that I had really left Auschwitz. Again and again I asked myself why we, the last few remaining Sonderkommando prisoners, had not been shot before the evacuation. Then again I told myself that I should not be marching in this column but for my indomitable will to survive; that I had to thank chance and a kindly fate for escaping one Sonderkommando selection after another. And finally I remembered those brave Czech girls who threw me out of the gas chamber when I had wanted to end my life. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a free man again, in a world without barbed wire, without gas chambers, and without hecatombs of corpses. I wondered what the world would say when I told them the horrific story of how I had spent the last few years.” (pp. 166-7)
June 17, 2017
Breath...
ok. Whatever that I'm going to say will not do this book any justice. So I'm not gonna over do it. But let me just say.. this is probably THE most eye-opening, heart shattering, MOST shocking, BRUTAL, HORRENDOUSLY truthful book I have ever read in my life. It hit me to the core like nothing has ever done before.
I am quite honestly at a loss for words. Fillip Muller was a Slovakian jew who was transported to Auschwitz like millions of others who dreamt their lives may become better by moving on to a new place that was promised as bring a better future for all of them. No one in their minds ever suspected that not only were they going to a concentration camp, but THE concentration camp that undertook the job of extermination of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of jews around Europe.
Its not just this act that will freeze you or numb your mind to a stage of shock, but the daily atrocities and tortures, activities the prisoners were put under. The writer was a 'Sonderkomando', Prisoners who were 'chosen' for the specific duties of disposing the hundreds of thousands of corpses of their fellow countrymen. These prisoners were the only ones who were allowed to enter in on the secret ongoings of the death factories and gas chambers. Due to the fact that these prisoners were in on their deeply guarded horrible secrets, these 'sonderkomandos' were also killed from time to time to safeguard that secret. Fillip, due to a miracle survived for three years and lived to tell this tale to the rest of the world.
I was left to wonder So many time.. HOW can humans become even worse than animals. so monstrous themselves to their fellow human beings. I had to keep my book down in many occasions, to take in a few breaths or to ponder over what just happened in that chapter. It was too much to take in sometimes.
I am glad that I read this book because it is a necessary chapter in history that all of us SHOULD know and also getting to see the strength and will of some people at the face of adversity and horrible circumstances was simply.. amazing. I am also not glad in way because it made me see the darkest parts of the human minds and their capability of sadistic, horrifying actions.
But as a last note.. This book will FOREVER have an important, cherished place in my heart. And thank you to Fillip Muller to putting all his horrifying experiences in writing. As the saying goes........'HISTORY IS FOR HUMAN KNOWLEDGE... THE ONLY CLUE TO WHAT MAN CAN DO IS WHAT MAN HAS DONE. THE VALUE OF HISTORY THEN, IS THAT IT TEACHES US WHAT MAN HAS DONE AND THUS WHAT MAN IS.'
ok. Whatever that I'm going to say will not do this book any justice. So I'm not gonna over do it. But let me just say.. this is probably THE most eye-opening, heart shattering, MOST shocking, BRUTAL, HORRENDOUSLY truthful book I have ever read in my life. It hit me to the core like nothing has ever done before.
I am quite honestly at a loss for words. Fillip Muller was a Slovakian jew who was transported to Auschwitz like millions of others who dreamt their lives may become better by moving on to a new place that was promised as bring a better future for all of them. No one in their minds ever suspected that not only were they going to a concentration camp, but THE concentration camp that undertook the job of extermination of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of jews around Europe.
Its not just this act that will freeze you or numb your mind to a stage of shock, but the daily atrocities and tortures, activities the prisoners were put under. The writer was a 'Sonderkomando', Prisoners who were 'chosen' for the specific duties of disposing the hundreds of thousands of corpses of their fellow countrymen. These prisoners were the only ones who were allowed to enter in on the secret ongoings of the death factories and gas chambers. Due to the fact that these prisoners were in on their deeply guarded horrible secrets, these 'sonderkomandos' were also killed from time to time to safeguard that secret. Fillip, due to a miracle survived for three years and lived to tell this tale to the rest of the world.
I was left to wonder So many time.. HOW can humans become even worse than animals. so monstrous themselves to their fellow human beings. I had to keep my book down in many occasions, to take in a few breaths or to ponder over what just happened in that chapter. It was too much to take in sometimes.
I am glad that I read this book because it is a necessary chapter in history that all of us SHOULD know and also getting to see the strength and will of some people at the face of adversity and horrible circumstances was simply.. amazing. I am also not glad in way because it made me see the darkest parts of the human minds and their capability of sadistic, horrifying actions.
But as a last note.. This book will FOREVER have an important, cherished place in my heart. And thank you to Fillip Muller to putting all his horrifying experiences in writing. As the saying goes........'HISTORY IS FOR HUMAN KNOWLEDGE... THE ONLY CLUE TO WHAT MAN CAN DO IS WHAT MAN HAS DONE. THE VALUE OF HISTORY THEN, IS THAT IT TEACHES US WHAT MAN HAS DONE AND THUS WHAT MAN IS.'
January 29, 2012
I've mentioned this many times -- I like to read Holocaust and WWII memoirs because they show the beauty of man overcoming the ugly.
Well, this book is indeed about the ugly -- the ugliest I've ever read.
This is an unprecedented memoir of a man who ends up being a prisoner at Aushwitz as a crematorium worker. He managed to smuggle out plans of the crematoria and the camps and seeing them in detail is more than sobering. He also gives detailed, intense commentary on exactly what went on in selections, details that many could never even dream of or imagine.
He talks about the progression of extermination of Jews -- how the SS figured out they needed the prisoners to undress BEFORE being gassed so as to save their clothing -- previously, prisoners had to undress every corpse. He explains the trickery the SS used, implementing the crematorium workers to fool the prisoners into thinking they really WERE going to have a shower and return to get their clothes back. He speaks about digging enormous ditches and how the SS burned bodies in these pits when the chimneys needed repair.
This is not an easy book to read.
However, it's a necessary book to be in the world, because no one should ever forget how quickly and easily so many people can die. It's also a testament to how quickly humans can turn into demons when a leader paves the way for them.
Lori Anderson
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Well, this book is indeed about the ugly -- the ugliest I've ever read.
This is an unprecedented memoir of a man who ends up being a prisoner at Aushwitz as a crematorium worker. He managed to smuggle out plans of the crematoria and the camps and seeing them in detail is more than sobering. He also gives detailed, intense commentary on exactly what went on in selections, details that many could never even dream of or imagine.
He talks about the progression of extermination of Jews -- how the SS figured out they needed the prisoners to undress BEFORE being gassed so as to save their clothing -- previously, prisoners had to undress every corpse. He explains the trickery the SS used, implementing the crematorium workers to fool the prisoners into thinking they really WERE going to have a shower and return to get their clothes back. He speaks about digging enormous ditches and how the SS burned bodies in these pits when the chimneys needed repair.
This is not an easy book to read.
However, it's a necessary book to be in the world, because no one should ever forget how quickly and easily so many people can die. It's also a testament to how quickly humans can turn into demons when a leader paves the way for them.
Lori Anderson
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February 22, 2020Прочетох до стр. 49 и се поболях. Физически ми е невъзможно да продължа, психическото избухна някъде на третата страница и не остана. Изключително важно свидетелство от страдалец в ада – аушвицките газови камери и крематориуми. Главата не го побира.
„Hitler and his henchmen had never made a secret of their attitude to the Jews nor of their avowed intention to exterminate them like vermin. The whole world knew it, and knowing it, it remained silent – was not their silence equivalent to consent?“
„Hitler and his henchmen had never made a secret of their attitude to the Jews nor of their avowed intention to exterminate them like vermin. The whole world knew it, and knowing it, it remained silent – was not their silence equivalent to consent?“
May 28, 2019
In his candid and personal account, Filip Müller offers the reader a glimpse into the life of not only an Auschwitz prisoner but a member of a crematoria Sonderkommando, members of which had to face death daily and on numerous occasions. After being deported to Auschwitz in 1942, Müller soon finds himself manning the very first gassing facility and, later, crematoria and with chilling honesty and openness recounts the actions of the SS, who were probing their way into making Auschwitz into a veritable death factory.
It’s impossible to imagine the emotional pain Müller suffered, undressing the still-warm bodies right after gassings and burning them in the open pits while Auschwitz officials were trying to develop “a more efficient method” to take human lives and conceal the evidence of their crimes. He never paints himself as a victim; only explains what he had to do to stay alive, let it be getting on the right side of the corrupted SS guards or “organizing” things for himself and his friends even though it meant stealing them from the recently gassed victims. The daily life of the camp, the inner workings of the crematoria Sonderkommando, camp resistance and comradery, and even brave individual actions of a few Jews who refused to go into the gas chamber without fighting - all this is presented extremely vividly in this brilliantly written memoir. I really can’t recommend this book highly enough. If you’re interested in the history of the Holocaust, it definitely should be on your must-read list.
It’s impossible to imagine the emotional pain Müller suffered, undressing the still-warm bodies right after gassings and burning them in the open pits while Auschwitz officials were trying to develop “a more efficient method” to take human lives and conceal the evidence of their crimes. He never paints himself as a victim; only explains what he had to do to stay alive, let it be getting on the right side of the corrupted SS guards or “organizing” things for himself and his friends even though it meant stealing them from the recently gassed victims. The daily life of the camp, the inner workings of the crematoria Sonderkommando, camp resistance and comradery, and even brave individual actions of a few Jews who refused to go into the gas chamber without fighting - all this is presented extremely vividly in this brilliantly written memoir. I really can’t recommend this book highly enough. If you’re interested in the history of the Holocaust, it definitely should be on your must-read list.
June 20, 2023
I’ve read my fair share of Holocaust/concentration camp stories, but I still learn more with each account. Each one contains a slightly different yet gruesome look into the atrocities that took place and a look into more specific people in the camp. This one is brutally honest and RAW, full of more unfathomable and gutting details. It was really difficult to get through. I found myself pausing to hide behind my hands as if that would somehow lessen the blow of the words a little bit.
Aside from the content, I’ll be okay if I never hear another conjunctive adverb ever again. This one would be better as a physical copy I think rather than on audio, which is why I’ll still give it 4 stars. Otherwise I would give it 3 because I really struggled with the reader’s cadence.
Aside from the content, I’ll be okay if I never hear another conjunctive adverb ever again. This one would be better as a physical copy I think rather than on audio, which is why I’ll still give it 4 stars. Otherwise I would give it 3 because I really struggled with the reader’s cadence.
February 1, 2021
Despite all of the documentation, imagery and first-hand accounts through the eyes of survivors; the atrocities of the Hell-on-earth known as the Holocaust are still mind-bogglingly difficult to comprehend. It is almost unfathomable to imagine how humans could treat their fellow man in the ways the Nazis treated millions of people. As a Jewish descendent of the Holocaust (my grandfather survived Buchenwald concentration camp); I suffer from relational PTSD (yes, it is an actual, diagnosable thing) but I must know what my people endured. In fact EVERYONE must, Jewish or not. Filip Muller was also a survivor of the Holocaust and spent three years as a prisoner working the crematorium ovens at both Auschwitz and Birkenau having to basically aid in the deaths of his own people. Muller’s account is not only that of his own personal experience; but of the detailed inner-workings of Auschwitz in the riveting piece, “Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers”.
In the foreword to “Eyewitness Auschwitz”, Yenuda Bauer – Professor and Director, International Center for Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem- addresses readers stressing the importance of Muller’s writing as it is not just a survivor’s recap but exposes the inner echelon of Auschwitz’s crematorium, gas chambers and brutal murders. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is rather a witness-stand affidavit than a simple memoir. Bauer also warns readers that “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is not a fictional tale, literary masterpiece or art offering but a forward portrait and insider peek. Well, Bauer is wrong. VERY wrong.
“Eyewitness Auschwitz” is in fact a masterpiece. It is MORE than a masterpiece: it is a riveting, real, mind-blowing, heartbreakingly crucial report. Readers will not only experience Muller’s time as a concentration camp prisoner through his eyes but will feel it inside their own souls. Your heart beats faster, you ache, you cry, you are numbed… you are there. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” transports readers with poignant, direct language – nothing is held back- but with a beautiful literary, descriptive tongue that is as vivid as the noonday sun.
Readers walk alongside Muller during his time at Auschwitz, as he escapes death and is sent to work in the crematorium, his ups and downs, his attempt at ending his own life, his will to fight alongside the Resistance and the eventual liberation of the camps. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is not the typical Holocaust memoir as the perspective is fresh with Muller literally opening the doors to Aushwitz’s crematoriums and introducing readers to the Nazis who ran them. The detail is staggering and almost too much to handle, emotionally: readers will find themselves needing to catch their breath and walk away from the book, momentarily.
Being that “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is not a standard memoir; this means that Muller opted against an overly sentimental perspective and therefore there is an absence of emotional analysis, full-psyche dive and over-romanticizing. Readers are left with some unanswered questions and the desiring to know Mueller’s personal thoughts and opinions. Yet, this doesn’t devalue the merit or strength of “Eyewitness Auschwitz” and Muller still managers to allow readers into his personal space.
There are moments in Muller’s retelling that feel slightly contrived and almost “too perfect” and “at the right time and place”. However, who are we to question the events and perhaps Muller’s experience truly was that extraordinary. Equally, Bauer’s foreword states that some of Muller’s statistics have been since proven to be inaccurate and suggests to verify with more recent texts. It would be useful if newer publications/translations of “Eyewitness Auschwitz” had an epilogue noting Muller’s imprecise statements.
Expanding on this, Muller never truly discourses on how he felt about escaping death but seeing and handling the corpses of his fellow Jews all day, everyday; coming off as callous and borderline sociopathological. However, this is probably Muller’s way of coping with the trauma and is part of his avoidance tactics/PTSD. Sadly, readers never learn why the Nazis spared Muller’s life even as the Red Army was kilometers away but obviously Muller didn’t know the reasoning, himself.
Muller maintains an engaging and captivating, almost documentary-esque tone throughout “Eyewitness Auschwitz” knowing the exact amount of historical detail ratio to keep readers constantly experiencing emotive responses.
The conclusion of “Eyewitness Auschwitz” doesn’t feel as consuming as the former portions leading up to the liberation climax. Muller lost some steam and was seemingly unsure how to wrap up his life story. Despite this weaker ending, “Eyewitness Auschwitz” manages to close in a loud-enough way.
“Eyewitness Auschwitz” is supplemented with diagrams and descriptive keys of the Auschwitz camps and the crematoriums, adding to the overall value of the text.
No amount of words or reviews can do “Eyewitness Auschwitz” proper justice. Muller’s experience/retelling is heart wrenching, critical and is a true insider’s look at the Nazi killing machine. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is both educational and serves as an expose on the Holocaust but mankind, in general (on a psychological level). This super important account is suggested for EVERYONE; especially those interested in WWII and those readers of the Jewish faith.
In the foreword to “Eyewitness Auschwitz”, Yenuda Bauer – Professor and Director, International Center for Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem- addresses readers stressing the importance of Muller’s writing as it is not just a survivor’s recap but exposes the inner echelon of Auschwitz’s crematorium, gas chambers and brutal murders. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is rather a witness-stand affidavit than a simple memoir. Bauer also warns readers that “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is not a fictional tale, literary masterpiece or art offering but a forward portrait and insider peek. Well, Bauer is wrong. VERY wrong.
“Eyewitness Auschwitz” is in fact a masterpiece. It is MORE than a masterpiece: it is a riveting, real, mind-blowing, heartbreakingly crucial report. Readers will not only experience Muller’s time as a concentration camp prisoner through his eyes but will feel it inside their own souls. Your heart beats faster, you ache, you cry, you are numbed… you are there. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” transports readers with poignant, direct language – nothing is held back- but with a beautiful literary, descriptive tongue that is as vivid as the noonday sun.
Readers walk alongside Muller during his time at Auschwitz, as he escapes death and is sent to work in the crematorium, his ups and downs, his attempt at ending his own life, his will to fight alongside the Resistance and the eventual liberation of the camps. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is not the typical Holocaust memoir as the perspective is fresh with Muller literally opening the doors to Aushwitz’s crematoriums and introducing readers to the Nazis who ran them. The detail is staggering and almost too much to handle, emotionally: readers will find themselves needing to catch their breath and walk away from the book, momentarily.
Being that “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is not a standard memoir; this means that Muller opted against an overly sentimental perspective and therefore there is an absence of emotional analysis, full-psyche dive and over-romanticizing. Readers are left with some unanswered questions and the desiring to know Mueller’s personal thoughts and opinions. Yet, this doesn’t devalue the merit or strength of “Eyewitness Auschwitz” and Muller still managers to allow readers into his personal space.
There are moments in Muller’s retelling that feel slightly contrived and almost “too perfect” and “at the right time and place”. However, who are we to question the events and perhaps Muller’s experience truly was that extraordinary. Equally, Bauer’s foreword states that some of Muller’s statistics have been since proven to be inaccurate and suggests to verify with more recent texts. It would be useful if newer publications/translations of “Eyewitness Auschwitz” had an epilogue noting Muller’s imprecise statements.
Expanding on this, Muller never truly discourses on how he felt about escaping death but seeing and handling the corpses of his fellow Jews all day, everyday; coming off as callous and borderline sociopathological. However, this is probably Muller’s way of coping with the trauma and is part of his avoidance tactics/PTSD. Sadly, readers never learn why the Nazis spared Muller’s life even as the Red Army was kilometers away but obviously Muller didn’t know the reasoning, himself.
Muller maintains an engaging and captivating, almost documentary-esque tone throughout “Eyewitness Auschwitz” knowing the exact amount of historical detail ratio to keep readers constantly experiencing emotive responses.
The conclusion of “Eyewitness Auschwitz” doesn’t feel as consuming as the former portions leading up to the liberation climax. Muller lost some steam and was seemingly unsure how to wrap up his life story. Despite this weaker ending, “Eyewitness Auschwitz” manages to close in a loud-enough way.
“Eyewitness Auschwitz” is supplemented with diagrams and descriptive keys of the Auschwitz camps and the crematoriums, adding to the overall value of the text.
No amount of words or reviews can do “Eyewitness Auschwitz” proper justice. Muller’s experience/retelling is heart wrenching, critical and is a true insider’s look at the Nazi killing machine. “Eyewitness Auschwitz” is both educational and serves as an expose on the Holocaust but mankind, in general (on a psychological level). This super important account is suggested for EVERYONE; especially those interested in WWII and those readers of the Jewish faith.
September 30, 2017
I visited Auschwitz a few weeks ago. The memorial site is haunting and it was a humbling experience to stand on the spot where hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Killed for no reason. It is a place of unspeakable evil and cunning. People being "exterminated" with brutal efficiency. Hearing about the conditions in the camp and seeing the remains of the camp, the pictures and some of the remains of people (ashes, bones, hair and personal belongings ) drove home the gravity of the situation in these camps. I also realized how lucky we are to live in times of peace in cities and countries were we can go about our lives without having to fear about most things. (At least for now.)
It is impossible to visit Auschwitz and not feel moved, confused and disturbed. I still struggle to understand why all these people had to be killed. Why would anyone go to such lengths to almost eliminate an entire race? It doesn't make any sense. I felt compelled to learn more about Auschwitz. I felt compelled to read and find the reason for all this hatred and cruelty.
Eyewitness Auschwitz, the first of many books that I will be reading on the holocaust and the war, gives a first hand account of the experience of one prisoner who was in Auschwitz for three years. It is a painful story that has to be read (and if possible, seen through a visit to Auschwitz,) to believe. Filip Muller's life in the camp, his accounts of the gas chambers and the way Jews, political prisioners and POWs were systematically exterminated is very difficult to accept unless you have seen the actual gas chambers and the camp in person.
A gripping account the struggles of Jews and prisoners in the camp and an insight into the lives of the Sonderkommandos, the prisoners who worked these crematoriums, Eyewitness Auschwitz is a must read for everyone. Puts a lot of things in perspective and might just nudge us to appreciate our present conditions and situation and live a better and peaceful life. But more than that, I believe these accounts are a reminder to all of us of the terrible acts that have been perpetuated in the name of religion, race and war and a reminder that it doesn't take a lot to push us beyond the edge.
It is impossible to visit Auschwitz and not feel moved, confused and disturbed. I still struggle to understand why all these people had to be killed. Why would anyone go to such lengths to almost eliminate an entire race? It doesn't make any sense. I felt compelled to learn more about Auschwitz. I felt compelled to read and find the reason for all this hatred and cruelty.
Eyewitness Auschwitz, the first of many books that I will be reading on the holocaust and the war, gives a first hand account of the experience of one prisoner who was in Auschwitz for three years. It is a painful story that has to be read (and if possible, seen through a visit to Auschwitz,) to believe. Filip Muller's life in the camp, his accounts of the gas chambers and the way Jews, political prisioners and POWs were systematically exterminated is very difficult to accept unless you have seen the actual gas chambers and the camp in person.
A gripping account the struggles of Jews and prisoners in the camp and an insight into the lives of the Sonderkommandos, the prisoners who worked these crematoriums, Eyewitness Auschwitz is a must read for everyone. Puts a lot of things in perspective and might just nudge us to appreciate our present conditions and situation and live a better and peaceful life. But more than that, I believe these accounts are a reminder to all of us of the terrible acts that have been perpetuated in the name of religion, race and war and a reminder that it doesn't take a lot to push us beyond the edge.
December 30, 2014
This is the memoire of one of the few surviving members of the Sondercommando from Auchwitz. The Sondercommando were the workers who did the dirty work in the industrialised death factories. The book tells in distressing detail how the camps worked and the inhumane "work" that the author was forced to carry out. It is an important historical record of terrible times.
May 21, 2009
I liked this book as much as it is possible to like a book that centers around the mass extermination of an entire race of people. Filip Muller's memoir of his three year imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp recreates the vivid details of the life of a young man forced to assist in the mass murders of thousands of Jews in order to stay alive.
Muller works in the crematorium - picking up the clothes left behind by people who thought they were going to the showers, but were really going to the gas chambers; "organizing" the valuables left behind by the dead, which would be used by the Nazis or traded by the prisoners for food, tobacco, and weapons; dragging the bodies out of the gas chambers; loading them into the ovens, and stoking the bodies to make sure they burned efficiently and in a timely manner. When the crematoriums were not enough, he and other prisoners were forced to dig fire pits in the yard behind the crematoriums.
He recalls he day-to-day existence, the thousands and thousands of deaths in a matter of fact tone that is slightly devoid of emotion. I'm sure that the atrocities he witnessed - women forced to the edge of the pits, forced to watched the burning bodies turn into ash, and then shot in the base of the neck, falling face first into the flames below; babies, still alive, thrown into the pails of human fat that had burned off of the bodies and left to die, and hearing the screams of people inside the gas chambers, desperately pleading to be let out, to live, left a lasting impression on him even more profound than his book left on me. The tone and slight lack of emotion allow the stark reality of the horrors stand out. The reader doesn't have the author's feelings to rely on, but is given the chance to feel the events as if he or she was there in the changing room of crematorium 5 along with a truckload of people from a liquidated ghetto or from a random selection at the concentration camp.
The one thought that kept racing through my mind as I read was, "What is it like to know that you are going to die in one of the most inhumane ways possible?" The overwhelming sense of dread and disbelief I felt every time a group of people were led into the changing room is nothing compared to what those people must have felt, going to their death naked, herded like cattle, then pillaged for everything of value, right down to their gold teeth and the women's long hair, and then burnt, the ashes dumped into a nearby river.
Even though this book is graphic and unsettling (a major understatement, I know), I feel that it is an important book to read and reflect upon. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Holocaust, Jewish studies, or to someone who wants to learn about the dark parts of humanity's past in order to ensure that they do not repeat themselves.
Muller works in the crematorium - picking up the clothes left behind by people who thought they were going to the showers, but were really going to the gas chambers; "organizing" the valuables left behind by the dead, which would be used by the Nazis or traded by the prisoners for food, tobacco, and weapons; dragging the bodies out of the gas chambers; loading them into the ovens, and stoking the bodies to make sure they burned efficiently and in a timely manner. When the crematoriums were not enough, he and other prisoners were forced to dig fire pits in the yard behind the crematoriums.
He recalls he day-to-day existence, the thousands and thousands of deaths in a matter of fact tone that is slightly devoid of emotion. I'm sure that the atrocities he witnessed - women forced to the edge of the pits, forced to watched the burning bodies turn into ash, and then shot in the base of the neck, falling face first into the flames below; babies, still alive, thrown into the pails of human fat that had burned off of the bodies and left to die, and hearing the screams of people inside the gas chambers, desperately pleading to be let out, to live, left a lasting impression on him even more profound than his book left on me. The tone and slight lack of emotion allow the stark reality of the horrors stand out. The reader doesn't have the author's feelings to rely on, but is given the chance to feel the events as if he or she was there in the changing room of crematorium 5 along with a truckload of people from a liquidated ghetto or from a random selection at the concentration camp.
The one thought that kept racing through my mind as I read was, "What is it like to know that you are going to die in one of the most inhumane ways possible?" The overwhelming sense of dread and disbelief I felt every time a group of people were led into the changing room is nothing compared to what those people must have felt, going to their death naked, herded like cattle, then pillaged for everything of value, right down to their gold teeth and the women's long hair, and then burnt, the ashes dumped into a nearby river.
Even though this book is graphic and unsettling (a major understatement, I know), I feel that it is an important book to read and reflect upon. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Holocaust, Jewish studies, or to someone who wants to learn about the dark parts of humanity's past in order to ensure that they do not repeat themselves.
September 2, 2016
This is not the most well-written WWII/Holocaust memoir, but it may be the most powerful. Its power lies in just how mundane Filip makes it all sound. Day after day after day of doing the same horrific thing - killing thousands of people, removing their hair, gold teeth and clothes, and incinerating them. He explains how the Nazis worked out the best ratio of corpses to feed into a stove at any one time, and how the crematory pits were designed to best use human fat as fuel..... Like it was all so run of the mill and not completely, mind-bendingly horrible. We all have read about how people were led into the gas chambers - about how they were told "go take a shower"; about the staggering numbers of people killed; what you don't realize is the sheer scale of it all - how the killing occurred nightly, and the ovens ran non-stop. *that* is what this book does. The sheer scale of it all. The relentlessness of it all.....
April 14, 2023
Brutal. El libro más duro que he leído en mi vida. Es la biografía de uno de los fogoneros de Auschwitz -Filip Muller- que debió ser uno de los pocos supervivientes del Sondercomando encargado de incinerar y hacer desaparecer los cuerpos de cientos de miles de judíos. Un testimonio único. Brutal.
Durante la lectura del libro, más de una vez he sentido vergüenza al asistir a tanta muerte y tanto sufrimiento desde la comodidad del siglo XXI. Después de leer este libro he sido capaz de entender que muchos supervivientes de los campos de exterminio se suicidaran. Vivir con la carga de lo que Muller cuenta en su libro no es fácil.
Esta historia es de esas que cumple aquello de “la realidad supera a la ficción”. No hay ni habrá una serie de TV o película que supere el horror y el terror que Filip M. nos traslada en su libro. Es Brutal. Aterrador. Espeluznante. Todo a la vez.
Durante la lectura del libro, más de una vez he sentido vergüenza al asistir a tanta muerte y tanto sufrimiento desde la comodidad del siglo XXI. Después de leer este libro he sido capaz de entender que muchos supervivientes de los campos de exterminio se suicidaran. Vivir con la carga de lo que Muller cuenta en su libro no es fácil.
Esta historia es de esas que cumple aquello de “la realidad supera a la ficción”. No hay ni habrá una serie de TV o película que supere el horror y el terror que Filip M. nos traslada en su libro. Es Brutal. Aterrador. Espeluznante. Todo a la vez.
January 8, 2019
This is a matter-of-fact though thought-provoking book about the horrors of Auschwitz. Even having been there and seen the inhumanity of it all myself, it is still hard to visualise what it would have been like to live through it. Müller's blunt writing style almost numbs you to what he describes and it caused me to think about what leads men and women to commit such evils. We are not born to hate but taught to do so. This book is a prime lesson that something like the Holocaust must never happen again. It is something that will stay with me for a long time. 5 stars.
December 2, 2022
Even knowing what kind of book I was getting into, I was not prepared for how difficult of a read this was. After what this man went through to expose the atrocities in Auschwitz, I think everyone needs to read his book.
April 12, 2020
(Not so much 'loved it', but star rating relates to importance and relevance.)
Read
February 18, 2021Najbardziej przerażająca książka, jaką przeczytałem w życiu
September 1, 2008
I read this after visiting Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. I wanted more real-life accounts of the Holocaust atrocities. I was stuck in the horror with a broken heart of the reality of this part in our world's history.
Three stars because it feels wrong give a higher rating to a story that exists only because of the devastation caused by Hitler's insane evil.
But these kinds of books should be read and digested so that history does not repeat itself. Many of us live a charmed life in safety and without the threat or reality of persecution. But we all live in a world where these horrible things happen and we should not turn a blind eye to those who have suffered and who suffer today.
This book is a well-told story and will horrify you.
Three stars because it feels wrong give a higher rating to a story that exists only because of the devastation caused by Hitler's insane evil.
But these kinds of books should be read and digested so that history does not repeat itself. Many of us live a charmed life in safety and without the threat or reality of persecution. But we all live in a world where these horrible things happen and we should not turn a blind eye to those who have suffered and who suffer today.
This book is a well-told story and will horrify you.
July 9, 2011
I haven't read this book in at least 10 years, but it has always stuck with me. I've recommended it to numerous people. I don't feel I can say too much here since it's been so long since I've read it, but I want to urge others to experience Filip Muller's story for themselves. It is a real eye opener. Although it will haunt you, I think it's important that the atrocities of the Nazi regime are not forgotten so they are not repeated.
July 25, 2018
An excruciatingly tough read, that I hesitate to say that I "liked." But that goes for any book that delves into horrors of the Holocaust, particularly so for works like this one that are told by the people who lived through it.
July 25, 2011
Even for a seasoned Holocaust reader, this account is profoundly painful. But should be required reading . . .
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August 19, 2012This is a difficult read!
April 17, 2013
Very shocking but a book everyone should read to see how life really wise in the camp.
April 3, 2013
Words do not do this book justice..... Filip Muller's eyewitness account of the atrocities committed at Auschwitz should never be forgotten.
May 8, 2013
A difficult book to read. Horror is piled upon horror until in a strange kind of way I became almost immune to it as the writer had too to survive
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