Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience [Paperback]

Gitta Sereny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 1983

Based on 70 hours of interviews with Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka (the largest of the extermination camps), this book bares the soul of a man who continually found ways to rationalize his role in Hitler's final soulution.

Editorial Reviews

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Based on 70 hours of interviews with Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka (the largest of the extermination camps), this book bares the soul of a man who continually found ways to rationalize his role in Hitler's final soulution.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (January 12, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394710355
• ISBN-13: 978-0394710358
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on the Holocaust, February 12, 2001

By 

Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience (Paperback)

I read this book after devouring Gitta Sereny's wonderful biography on Nazi Armaments Minister, Albert Speer. This offering is superior to anything else on the Holocaust, bar none. Sereny spent many hours interviewing the Commandant of Treblinka, Franz Stangl. He reveals in dispassionate tones the horrors of this death camp: the subterfuge to confuse those arriving to the camp, the fake train station, the beautiful gardens... it's almost surreal to read this man's words. More disquieting is that Stangl appears to be rather normal, though obviously a psychopath since the concept of guilt is alien to him. He loved his wife, was a devoted father and was an attractive personality, yet he was involved in monstrous crimes.

Sereny also interviews Jews who survived Treblinka by working in the "clothes factory," and she also interviews some of the S.S. guards who presided over this horrific complex. But the heart and soul of the book is Stangl, whom she interviewed while he was in a German prison in 1972. When she asked him, "When you saw children about to be gassed, did you think of your own children?" Stangl vacantly looked away and said mutely, "I don't know."

This book should be required reading for those who deny the Holocaust or seek to make excuses for Nazi genocide. Sereny is a masterful writer and every word of this book is gripping. This is not a product to skim haphazardly, it's as engrossing as anything ever written about genocide in the 20th century. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and Thought-Provoking Work!, December 20, 2002

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience (Paperback)

The genius behind the choice for this book's title revolves around what for me, as well as for many other students of the Holocaust, is the central question the phenomenon of organized mass murder inevitably raises; how could it be true that ordinary men are capable of such unspeakable horror on such an unimaginable scale, willing to become enthusiastic participants in the ritualistic murder of millions of their fellow human beings. If one is honest, he or she begins to raise some very disturbing questions about just what kind of a biological organism we are part of, ourselves included as un-indicted co-conspirators by way of the murder we hold somewhere in our own hearts.

Yet, even if you grant me the kindness of agreeing with my supposition, it still does not explain how such men as the individual profiled in this book, Herr Franz Stangl, the one-time commander of the death camp at Treblinka, could manage to swing his body out of bed every day for the decades since he was captured by the Allies and the war ended for him. His personal testimony shows once more how the subtle political use of language and the countless attempts to justify themselves through euphemistic references to the so-called "Jewish problem" seems to aid such individuals in playing a kind of psychological hide-and seek with themselves by aligning their actions with the purposes and goals of Germany during the war. And yet, quite poignantly the interview with Stangl also illustrates how vain and hopeless such efforts to blithely paper over the past really are. Somewhere in the darkness of one's own soul an individual knows all he is guilty of. Or so we would suppose.

So what we have in this thoughtful and penetrating book is a glimpse into the demon's eye, and find that perhaps Hannah Arendt was right when she said it was somehow too banal and trite to be believed or trusted. In truth, just as the author contends, the only way out of the searing heat of the conscience's cauldron is to face the truth and admit as best we can our part in it. Indeed, in this work she bravely illustrates, through Commander Stangl, how one's personal choices change us, often in most frightening ways. Like Stangl, we must all go bravely into the darkness to find the truth that will indeed set us free. In this sense the author's use of so many anecdotal situations is instructive, illustrating just how wide the gate to hell and damnation is, through a variety of variously disguised and decorated entrances. In this regard, I particularly enjoyed her rather erudite argument condemning the indifference and cupidity of both Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church regarding their studied and sustained political and ethical indifference to the continuing operation of the death camps.

In summary, this book provides the reader with an opportunity to be transported to a wasteland where evil stands alone and unafraid in the cold light of day, where too much talk and too little compassion, too much self-serving cowardice and too few examples of individual courage co-exist side by side, and where you can have an opportunity to listen as all of a lifetime of careful rationalization and intellectual compartmentalizing come crashing down, as Stangl finally comes to terms with the monstrous aspects of his own tortured soul. This is a memorable book, one that bears careful reading and a good bit of independent thought, but one I can heartily recommend.

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a soul full of emptiness, May 1, 2001

By 

edward j. santella (Malden, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience (Paperback)

There is a moment in this book about Franz Stangl, the commandant of the death camp Treblinka, in which his wife, who is visiting, learned what the camp is doing. She rushed out to meet him on his way home from "work". "I said, 'I know what you are doing in Sobibor. My God, how can they? What are you doing in this? What is your part in it?' Her husband answered, 'Look, little one, please calm down, please. You must believe me. I have nothing to do with any of this.' I said, 'How can you be there and have nothing to do with it?' And he answered, 'My work is purely administrative ....' 'You mean you don't see it happen?' I asked. 'Oh, yes,' he answered. 'I see it. But I don't do anything to anybody.'"

Gitta Sereny, who may be the world's best interviewer, sat down with Franz Stangl over a long period of time while he was in prison. She interviewed him, Frau Stangl, their friends, relatives, those who finally tracked him down after the war, and survivors of the camps. She is above all patient. She listens. Stangl's story is a familiar one, and not just in Nazi Germany. We see and hear frequently only what we want to see and hear. We remember what is convenient to remember. As I write this, the US press is aglow with reports and opinions regarding the story that the former Senator Kerry has admitted killing civilians in Vietnam. Surprise and shock, as if we were hearing such a report for the first time. As if we aren't capable of the same. As if we are always simply doing our job, as if doing our job were a virtue and a shield against responsibility for evil. Yes, 30,000 children die of hunger every day. Yes, the clothes I'm wearing were manufactured by a ten year old working fourteen hour days. Yes, my SUV is helping destroy life on earth. Yes, what I do today is making the world unlivable for my grandchildren. Yes, I see it. But I'm not doing anything to anybody.

In the end, Stangl admits. "But I was there. So yes, in reality I share the guilt .... Because my guilt ... my guilt ... only now in these talks ... now that I have talked about it all for the first time .... My guilt is that I am still here. That is my guilt. I should have died. That was my guilt." He died nineteen hours later of heart failure.

Sereny takes us into something much like Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". But here, through her skill, there is a realization, too late and too little for Stangl and his victims. We, however, still have time. This may be a hopeful book.