From Publishers Weekly
Born in Germany in 1914, Matzner, who died in 1991, left for Jerusalem in 1936. He returned, now a rabbi, to his native land in 1938, and before long the gestapo was at his door. Thus began the nightmare that would continue until 1945 in some 20 prisons and concentration camps in France, Poland and Germany. Matzner, fluent in German, Yiddish and French, used his talents as an amateur graphologist and astrologer to gain some privileges, but for most of these years he was a laborer, and on several occasions he came close to death. Hence the title, for in camp jargon a Muselmann was a prisoner considered on the verge of death. In his introduction, Matzner writes, "I do not expect to break new ground here." He doesn't, but like all memoirs of camp inmates, his book, written with freelancer Margolis, serves to demonstrate the brutalities humans are capable of.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
A Jew of German origin, Rabbi David Matzner writes with astonishing and vivid recall of his five years in 20 prisons, slave labor and concentration camps in France, Poland and Germany. Matzner's description of his experiences at Auschwitz and elsewhere, in a world surfeited with horror and eager for hope, still has the power to move a reader. At one of the camps at which he spent time as a schreiber, a clerk, was the Satmar Rebbe, whose barrack, in which were housed 240 of his fellows, refused all non-kosher food, and subsisted on a diet of bread, potatoes and onions with boiled water. The barrack became a place of worship, learning and study, in part thanks to Matzner. On May 2, 1945, just as his strength and luck had run out, and he was about to die in a basement filled with rats and excrement, unconscious, he was liberated. The Muselmann: Diary of a Jewish Slave Laborer is an excellent addition to any holocaust studies collection -- putting a human face to an inhuman history. -- Midwest Book Review
