The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps Reprint Edition

A close and penetrating look at how the survivors of the Nazi and Stalinist death camps came through such horror in human ways. Des Pres explodes the myths about the Jews going to their deaths “like sheep;” of survivors saving their own lives by becoming amoral; of those who lived suffering from “survivor’s guilt.” Rather, says Des Pres, survivors felt an obligation to the dead to bear witness; survivors lived by maintaining their moral sensibilities and by cooperating with one another and sharing in each other’s tribulations and successes; to survive in the conditions of extremity found in the death camps was, in itself, an act of resistance. Humans are social by nature of their very biology, says Des Pres, and this is perhaps our main hope in this era. His depiction of survivor as “hero” (in contrast to the numerous dead heroes of Western literature) has influenced me from the time I first read this book in the mid-1990s.

This is the single best work on the death camps in Germany and the labor camps in the USSR that I have ever read. The descriptions of camp life are as harrowing as anything found elsewhere, but the clincher for me are the reflections on the implications of survival of the camp experience for an understanding of human nature. One strips a human being of possessions, citizenship, friends, family, and even identity, and place that into as random and raw an environment that human beings can fashion: what can one be looking at but an unadorned soul? The book profoundly changed me, as it has others. It is a classic, perhaps even more important than Frankl's *Man's Search for Meaning*. Sadly, we will have to augment this book with descriptions of camps in North Korea and other places someday. But this book will help us to understand those experiences, too, a fact that only adds to the book's importance.

Be prepared for some incredible testimony from survivors. Makes you appreciate the small things in life.

Granted, the book was most interesting up to about 85% of it until the author's explanation of WHY, progressed into some disasterous baboon theory. It is understandable that it is very difficult to consider the existence of God after such a horrific decade. It does not give the author an entitlement to this broad analysis of a "scream theory", or "the biosocial roots of human existence" and better yet that "behavior specific to man exists within a continuum of life-activities so fundamental and essential to existence that, in one form or another, they may be found throughout the biological realm" or to "extopulate a human biogrammer from the activities of PRIMATES ??????????" And lets not forget the reunion of Darwin with genetics creating some unified theory. Dear Jesus, speak to this man if hopefully he has ears to hear. Otherwise, I couldn't put the book down.

Answered some questions I had about survival in the camps. Dignity was a saving grace, but sometimes choices were made that caused others to perish. Author was a bit heavy handed explaining the communist triumph of the survivors; only groups survived; individual effort was suicidal; politicos were first in line for best clothes, food; God was declared guilty of Nazi atrocities.

Detailed description of the essential elements of character needed to survive murderous prisons, mainly the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet Gulag. They are surprising. Every man for himself did not work. An appreciation for life, and a willingness to help when possible, are two of the surprising traits that emerge.Highly recommended. First part is relatively uninteresting. Keep going.

A hard read but well worth it

Profound and powerful read about overcoming overwhelming physical and mental atrocities. Anyone who reads this and walks away still delving in on one's life obstacles, missed one of the major points of this book.