Customer Reviews

Facing The Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are no shortage of books that deal with the Holocaust, but this work by the Bulgarian writer Todorov offers a rare and sensitive insight into how we understand and cope with evil. The writer has the courage to challenge the tendency by victims to own the historical atrocities they witnessed. He worries that by allowing the victims to define the evil of the oppressors we turn past genocides into monuments that do not speak to us. He explores the nature of complicity, heroism, myth and resistence in political and moral dimensions. He uncovers the potential in all of us to be, if not camp guards, then silent accomplices to mass murder. The book explores in disturbing detail the darkness that is part of the human condition. It has been a long time since I marked up a book like this. He stands alongside writers such as Primo Levi.

Tzvetan Todorov's work is a must read for someone trying to understand the multiple, competing decision points for everyone trapped in the maelstrom of totalitarian genocide. Much like Hilberg's Victims, Perpetrators, Bystanders, Facing the Extreme tries to consider the mental evaluation processes of everyone during this period of history.

The most useful chapters are in the second section, entitled "Neither Monsters nor Beasts." Many aspects of personal character, coping mechanisms, and consequences are detailed in these chapters.

While Todorov's style (or the translation) are sometimes difficult to follow, the essence of what he is saying is dynamic, challenging reading. The chapter on Depersonalization is especially attention grabbing; while it focuses on life in concentration camps, in our present culture and its problems, it has many applicable lessons.

Todorov also makes many references to other salient works of Holocaust/genocide literature. For the new student of genocide, this may appear somewhat daunting, but Todorov does a fine job of quoting at length those passages that repeating, rather than leave you wondering what the stage whisper allusion was.

For anyone who teaches about genocide, this is a must read. For anyone willing to peel aside the dark curtain and look into the abyss of true dark humanity, this is a must read. Eva Fogelman's e & COurage" is a far more uplifting, positive book than Todorov's, but Todorov exposes dark thoughts that need not be kept like mushrooms, but should be brought forward for discussion and reflection.

In the field of holocaust writing this author is probably one of the better, maybe the best. Therefore, I was interested in the book just because his name was attached to it. The concept is very interesting and a new one, examining the way the victims of the holocaust and the USSR prison camps dealt with their time in the camps and how they survived from an emotional perspective. It is a powerfully written book and the author pours a lot of himself into the pages. This book focuses on the human condition, how they survived and how they cam out in he end. It does not act as a history of the camps, numbers of imprisoned people or methods. If you are interested in the human element in this horrible time in our history then I would suggest this book.

Tzvetan Todorov's work is a must read for someone trying to understand the multiple, competing decision points for everyone trapped in the maelstrom of totalitarian genocide. Much like Hilberg's Victims, Perpetrators, Bystanders, Facing the Extreme tries to consider the mental evaluation processes of everyone during this period of history.

The most useful chapters are in the second section, entitled "Neither Monsters nor Beasts." Many aspects of personal character, coping mechanisms, and consequences are detailed in these chapters.

While Todorov's style (or the translation) are sometimes difficult to follow, the essence of what he is saying is dynamic, challenging reading. The chapter on Depersonalization is especially attention grabbing; while it focuses on life in concentration camps, in our present culture and its problems, it has many applicable lessons.

Todorov also makes many references to other salient works of Holocaust/genocide literature. For the new student of genocide, this may appear somewhat daunting, but Todorov does a fine job of quoting at length those passages that repeating, rather than leave you wondering what the stage whisper allusion was.

For anyone who teaches about genocide, this is a must read. For anyone willing to peel aside the dark curtain and look into the abyss of true dark humanity, this is a must read. Eva Fogelman's Conscience & Courage" is a far more uplifting, positive book than Todorov's, but Todorov exposes dark thoughts that need not be kept like mushrooms, but should be brought forward for discussion and reflection.

I eagerly looked forward to reading this book, and gaining further insight into questions of morality in the moral crucble of concentration camps. But Todorov's thinking is fuzzy in the extreme, moving from cliche to nonsense. There are many extremely good books that cover the same material. The Nazi Doctors, by Robert Jay Lifton is infinitely better, as are The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Erich Fromm, Treblinka by Jean-Francois Steiner, and Modernity and the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman. The only reason I give this two stars instead of one is that the original quotes by concentration camp survivors that he sprinkles liberally throughout the text are extremely interesting. The quotes themselves give insight. Too bad the analysis doesn't match the subject.