- Summary
- "The children of Auschwitz: this is the darkest spot in the ocean of suffering that was the Holocaust. They were deported to the concentration camp with their families, with most being murdered in the gas chambers upon their arrival, or were born there under unimaginable circumstances. While 232,000 children and juveniles were deported to Auschwitz, only 750 were liberated in the death camp at the end of January 1945. Most of them were under 15 years of age. Alwin Meyer's masterwork is the culmination of decades of research and interviews with the children and their descendants, sensitively reconstructing their stories before, during and after Auschwitz. The camp would remain with them throughout their lives: on their forearms, as a tattooed number, and in their minds, in the memory of heart-rending separation from parents and siblings, medical experiments, abject confusion, ceaseless hunger and a perpetual longing for home and security. Once the purported liberation came, there was no blueprint for piecing together personal biographies after the unthinkable had happened. Many of the children, often orphaned, had forgotten their names or ages, and had only fragmented understandings of where they came from. While some struggled to reconnect to the parents from whom they had been separated, others had known nothing other than the camp. Some children grew up without the ability to trust and to play. Survival is not yet life; it is an in-between stage which requires individuals to learn how to live. The liberated children had to learn how to be young again in order to grow into adults like others did"--Publisher's description.
- Uniform Title
- Vergiss deinen Namen nicht. English
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Meyer, Alwin, 1950- author.
- Published
- Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2022]
©2022
- Locale
- Poland
Pologne
- Edition
- English edition
- Contents
-
Life Before
'That's When My Childhood Ended'
'The Hunt for Jews Began'
Gateway to Death
'As If in a Coffin'
Oswiecim
Oshpitzin
Auschwitz
Children of Many Languages
Small Children, Mothers and Grandmothers
'Di 600 Inglekh' and Other Manuscripts Found in Auschwitz
Births in Auschwitz
'Twins! Where Are the Twins?'
'To Be Free at Last!'
Transports, Death Marches and Other Camps
Dying? What's That?
Alive Again!
Who Am I?
'... The Other Train Is Always There'.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Somers, Nick, translator.
- Notes
-
"Originally published in German as Vergiss deinen Namen nicht. Die Kinder von Auschwitz ... Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2015"--Title page verso.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 438-493) and index.
Life Before -- 'That's When My Childhood Ended' -- 'The Hunt for Jews Began' -- Gateway to Death -- 'As If in a Coffin' -- Oswiecim -- Oshpitzin -- Auschwitz -- Children of Many Languages -- Small Children, Mothers and Grandmothers -- 'Di 600 Inglekh' and Other Manuscripts Found in Auschwitz -- Births in Auschwitz -- 'Twins! Where Are the Twins?' -- 'To Be Free at Last!' -- Transports, Death Marches and Other Camps -- Dying? What's That? -- Alive Again! -- Who Am I? -- '... The Other Train Is Always There'.
Translated from the German.
