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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Piotr M. A. Cywiński, "Auschwitz: A Monograph on the Human" (Muzeum Auschwitz, 2022)
Description: Auschwitz is perhaps the best-known memorial site in the world. Epicenter of the Nazi extermination campaign of Europe’s Jewish population, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp system also held over 400,000 inmates (Jews and Gentiles both) in unspeakable conditions. Famous survivors such as Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi are widely read by high-schoolers and undergraduates, but a synoptic overview of the human experience and emotions of the Auschwitz inmates has long been missing. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, the director of Poland’s Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, has produced a monumental 590-page work that seeks to fill this gap. On the basis of tens...