People in Auschwitz

by Hermann Langbein

Hermann Langbein was allowed to know and see extraordinary things forbidden to other Auschwitz inmates. Interned at Auschwitz in 1942 and classified as a non-Jewish political prisoner, he was assigned as clerk to the chief SS physician of the extermination camp complex, which gave him access to documents, conversations, and actions that would have remained unknown to history were it not for his witness and his subsequent research. Also a member of the Auschwitz resistance, Langbein sometimes found himself in a position to influence events, though at his peril.

People in Auschwitz is very different from other works on the most infamous of Nazi annihilation centers. Langbein's account is a scrupulously scholarly achievement intertwining his own experiences with quotations from other inmates, SS guards and administrators, civilian industry and military personnel, and official documents. Whether his recounting deals with captors or inmates, Langbein analyzes the events and their context objectively, in an unemotional style, rendering a narrative that is unique in the history of the Holocaust. This monumental book helps us comprehend what has so tenaciously challenged understanding.

Genres: History, Holocaust, Nonfiction, World War II, Memoir, Germany

568 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

lots of details about Auschwitz ... some of which may find their way into my current novel

[Ellie Midwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read a lot of Holocaust memoirs and studies in the course of my life but never before have I come across anything as objective and detailed as H. Langbein’s “People in Auschwitz.” H. Langbein, according to his own admission, had a certain advantage over other historians: he was a former Auschwitz inmate himself, and therefore not only he had his own memories to rely on but he also could interview multiple survivors while working on this study and create what is perhaps the most detailed account of Auschwitz that exists so far.

What I appreciated the most in this particular study was the objectivity of it. One has to give it to Langbein, not taking sides while speaking about as personal an experience as Auschwitz was, must have been extremely difficult yet he completed the task admirably. By separating the book into two parts - the inmates and the jailers - he paints a realistic picture of what life was like not only for ones incarcerated there but for the perpetrators as well. By bringing up multiple survivors’ accounts, he doesn’t leave a single stone unturned while describing the ins and outs of the most infamous extermination camp. He talks about extremes of the Birkenau camp - the so-called Muselmänner and the camp VIPs, that is, privileged inmates who were given mostly clerical tasks or worked in the Kanada (sorting detail) or the Sonderkommando and therefore led a completely different life from those who were at the very bottom of the camp’s complex hierarchy. He also talks about the jailers and their types - the sadistic ones who took pleasure in beating and murdering the inmates, and the ones who risked their own lives to help the inmates and got executed for it.

Langbein doesn’t separate the inmates and the jailers into good ones and into bad ones respectively; instead, he examines the human nature of each individual and admits that even among the inmates there were rotten types and that even among SS doctors or guards were the ones who helped the inmates and were later acquitted based on the survivors’ testimonies in their defense.

The amount of research that went into this study is truly astounding and worth separate praise. After you finish this book, you’ll be able to name most of the notable inmates, Kapos, and the SS leaders; I was actually left with a feeling that I knew all these people personally, and to create such a vivid portrait of each is definitely no easy feat and particularly when it comes to historical studies. It’s fascinating, not dry at all but instead is filled with everyday scenes that will remain in your memory long after you’ve finished the book, and meticulously researched. If one is serious about studying the Holocaust and Auschwitz, this book should definitely be on their must-read list.

[Castles · Rating 5 out of 5]

“By comparison, Dante’s Inferno almost seems like a comedy to me,” wrote Johann Kremer, SS officer and war criminal, a physician who performed experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz.

This is easily one of the most important and unique documents ever written about Auschwitz. It reads almost like the work of a fully aware detective — precise, deliberate, and profoundly observant. Langbein wasn’t just a prisoner: he was a key figure in the Auschwitz underground, and later played a significant role in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. These layers make his work something more than memoir — they make it meta-Auschwitz read, a report, and it deserves to be treated as such.

Awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations, Langbein had access to areas, documents, and insights that most prisoners could never have imagined. As a political prisoner considered Aryan by the SS (the Nazis failed to uncover his half-Jewish background), he witnessed a fuller picture of the camp’s inner workings. His perspective is unlike any other in the camp’s literary canon.

As the title implies, People in Auschwitz is not just about survival. It is also a study in moral psychology: of the half-good officers, the monsters, the enablers, the indifferent, the sadists, the medics, the kapos, the prisoners, and the underground. It’s about human behavior in the worst of all possible hells. You can’t help but realize, with a chill, that this could happen again. This book is not merely a chronicle of what happened, it’s a portrait of how people allowed it to happen.

This is not a "beginner’s" book about Auschwitz. By the time you arrive here, it feels like you already know the camp’s inner gossip, the names, the corridors, the routines. and Langbein, without sentiment and somewhat an analytical tone, takes you behind many curtains.

His almost scientific tone somehow makes everything even more horrific. Despite having read many testimonies, I encountered stories here that I couldn’t even imagine, and it’s not just the jewish point of view, but the polish prisoners, the Russian POWs, German political prisoners and the gypsies too.

There are many people to google here, many stories, many topics. One that particularly stands out is about the prisoners after the war. Like Charlotte delbo, it is absolutely fascinating.

This is a painful read. But it must not be ignored. It should be mandatory. Plus, this book really should be reprinted and renditioned on a massive scale.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am writing a play that includes Auschwitz as background, so a lot of what I am currently reading has to do with the Holocaust in general and this camp in particular. Hermann Langbein was an Austrian communist who fought with the International Brigade in the Civil War, and was sent to Dachau and then Auschwitz after the Anschluss. There he served as a clerical assistant to SS Doctor Eduard Wirths. In that position, Langbein was able to observe the camp from both a macro and micro perspective. He was not Jewish, and he constantly reminds the reader that his position was privileged. That being said, he was threatened with execution at least twice, and only escaped because Wirths protected him. Langbein is grateful to Wirths, who committed suicide after his 1945 arrest, but Langbein also records the fact that Wirths did human experimentation (though not on the scale of fellow camp doctor Joseph Mengele).

The book attempts to record what life was like in Auschwitz. What makes it particularly useful? Langbein documents everything he can about the entire population, including inmates and guards, civilians who came into contact with inmate workers at places like IG Farben and Siemens, family members, etc. He is incredibly thorough, and remarkably dispassionate. This does not mean he refrains from judgment, or moral outrage. But he does offer insights into why Auschwitzers did what they did, whether good or evil (and I am not sure that Langbein sees many people who were uniformly "good"). I suppose all of us have wondered how we would have behaved as citizens during the Third Reich. Langbein's conclusion is that most of those who ran Auschwitz were not slavering monsters or sociopaths --- which let's face it, would be comforting --- but normal Germans corrupted by the same wants and desires that affect all of us. Power. Purpose. An ideological point of view. Greed (the discussion of Canada, the name given to the sorting area for items left behind by gassed Jews after transport is particularly harrowing).

All of this is useful to me as I write my play. But this book should be required reading, particularly as the West begins to slide towards nationalism again. I would also recommend a German movie called Labyrinth of Lies, as well as Deborah Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust.

Highly, highly recommend.

[Kerrilaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING BOOK!!! What I really like about this book is how the author really tries to take a look from both sides of every story, how victims can be killers and killers victims. It also shows how Auschwitz was more like a city and explained a lot more about what went on in concentration camps besides the woeful glimpses we see in movies.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

People in Auschwitz: Published in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was written by Hermann Langbein. This is a book that talks about the groups of people in the camp as well as some individuals. It takes a look at the overall composite of the camp. Not only does he talk about the prisoners but he talks about the jailers. The dynamics of the camp changed as it grew and as the war shifted gears. Mr. Langbein writes in such a manner that we get the full impact of the camp without dwelling on the atrocities. These must be mentioned to tall the entire truth. He includes the happier aspects of the camp in Music and Games and Those Born in Auschwitz. He humanizes the jailers by presenting them as human beings gone wrong. He continues talking about them through the liberation to after the war. He covers a great deal of information in such a short time. This is not a book to be read quickly but to be read and thought about- objectively if possible. This is one of those books which teachers and learners of the Holocaust must read.

[ger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply the most informative book I've read on Auschwitz. I learned so much about the camp and its corruption of the human spirit. It hasn't got a narrative as it's a study but it is high in detail and examples. Langbein also is quite conscious of not drawing generalisations while allowing the facts to speak for themselves. Truly a book worth reading for anyone who is interested in that unimaginable place and time.

[Jacques Lafosse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longo descritivo de um medico que inicialmente estava em Dachau e em seguida a Auschwitz. Era austriaco. Ele foi afetado como auxiliar e secretario no hospital do campo. Tinha uma visao ampla sobre o que acontecia. Como o nome indica, conta centenas de historias curtas, dos algozes e dos prisioneiros. Apos a guerra, Langbein se dedicou a coletar todas as informacoes disponiveis sobre esses campos.

[Janakap · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t change the date that I began to read this. But since the version I read is an ebook, and was listed at just under 2,000 pages, I know it took me more than 2 days to read this. I also gave myself permission to stop reading it about halfway through. I’m well read on the Shoah, and have visited Auschwitz. Langbein was a prisoner there for years and had a very different view to life in the camp because he was a clerk/secretary in one of the camp commandants offices. He tells his story in a straightforward, no-nonsense, academic, this-is-how-it-was way. Excellent writing on terribly atrocious things that are an abomination on this planet. With all of this said/written, I felt no need to finish this dissertation on what actually took place in Poland in the 1940’s to the Jews of Europe, some of whom where my relatives. I feel that this should be required reading for all Holocaust deniers.

[Clayton Brannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed account of the infamous NAZI death and labor camp written and researched by someone who spent 10 years total in different camps. This is an absolute must read for anyone who wants to know how the NAZI regime set up and used the prisoners against themselves to gain their ends.

[L.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

To jest... bardzo dobra książka. Trudno nazwać ją "fajną" ze względu na tematykę, a mnie z resztą będą się "podobać" wszystkie książki o tej tematyce, ale ta jest wyj��tkowa. Autor nie pisze tylko o sobie, a stara się przedstawić Auschwitz z różnej perspektywy i do tego bardzo obiektywnie. Dlatego (jak na razie) jest to najlepsza i najciekawsza książka o tej tematyce jaką czytałem!
Jak sam mówi, skupił się najbardziej na wyjątkach, a więc na "nieludzkich" więźniach (ale czyż można być ludzkim, gdy okoliczności są nieludzkie?), oraz na "ludzkich" SS-manach. Całkiem sporo było tych "ludzkich". Choć proporcjonalnie wychodzi na to, że to jedynie garstka (1%). Byli też zachowujący się różnie. To mi uświadomiło, że człowiek nigdy nie jest tylko "dobry" albo tylko "zły" - to by było za proste.

"Nie ma nic bardziej fałszywego niż prosty podział na czarne i białe."
"Żaden człowiek nie wytrzyma psychicznie tego, że jest bez żadnych ograniczeń panem życia i śmierci."

Dowiedziałem się z tej książki wielu rzeczy, o których jeszcze nie miałem pojęcia! Uświadomiło mi to jak wiele jeszcze nie wiem o Auschwitz... i nie przestaje mnie zaskakiwać...

"Byli tacy, którzy mogli pić w Auschwitz szampana, a z drugiej strony nikt nie wiedział rano, jak dzień się zakończy.
W Auschwitz nie było nic niewyobrażalnego, żadna skrajność zbyt jaskrawa. Wszystko było możliwe, dosłownie wszystko."

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Langbein surveys the various types of people in Auschwitz, the various conditions they found themselves in at Auschwitz and the various types of reactions to those conditions. He compiles excerpts from personal testimonies, published works, his own personal experiences, facts and figures from the Auschwitz archives and testimonies at various Nazi war crime trials.

I think I would not recommend it as a first book on the Holocaust because it analyses what happened there rather than relates it as such and I think the author was assuming some previous exposure to survivors' accounts. But if like me, having read some survivors accounts you want to understand more, this book has lots of food for thought.

I read it because Primo Levi includes an excerpt from it in his work The Search For Roots: A Personal Anthology. Levi says it is "a book that is dear to me" (The Search for Roots, p.207)
I downloaded the book from archive.org:

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ognuno di quelli che erano lì ha fatto almeno una volta qualcosa di buono. Questa è, appunto, la cosa peggiore. Se gli uomini delle SS ad Auschwitz avessero fatto sempre soltanto del male, mi sarei detta che non potevano fare altrimenti perché erano dei sadici malati. Ma invece questi uomini sapevano distinguere fra il bene e il male e decidevano una volta per il bene e novantanove per il male.” – Ella Lingens (p. 341)

[Joana Martins · Rating 3 out of 5]

i do believe it is a goos book with so much information. however the purpose of my reading wasn't professional therefor I found this book extremely hard to read and maintain my attention amd line of thought.
i do not think this is the writter's fault as it is perfectly written.
It is probably perfect for those actually studying this matter.

[Inknscroll]

This book was recommended in one of the "Bookmarks" magazine's issues of either: (Nov/ Dec 2007) or (Jan/ Feb 2008).