This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman by Tadeusz Borowski.
I have read several books on the Holocaust for my Holocaust class (the joys of being a history major), but this is by far the most graphic and relentless in it's portrayal of the authour's imprisonment. The images rush into your head and don't go away. It is by far more graphic than Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, or Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning. You find yourself both digusted at the things the author does to survive but questioning yourself whether or not you would do the same things in order to survive. A truly sad and horror filled story (collection of his works about his imprisonment to be more precise) from a man who was so haunted by the things he had done in the name of self preservation that he took his own life.
There have been very few books or films that I have had to put down and walk away from for a while to collect myself and my thoughts, but this is one of them.
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I will not walk so that a child may live!
- Master Shake
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