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Title: The terrible scope of the horror
Review: Most of the previous accounts of Auschwitz that I've read have been personal accounts, most recently Rudolph Vrba's Escape from Auschwitz. While these personal accounts are quite powerful and serve to put a human face on a tragedy of almost inconceivable scope, they are only slivers of the big picture. This book provides a broad overview of the history of Auschwitz, compiled from eyewitness accounts, transcripts of war crimes trials, and the memoirs of Rudolf Hoess and other Nazi's involved in the camp. While it lacks the emotional impact of a more personal account, this book helps shed some light on the scope of the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkeneau and the holocaust in general. By itself, it is an important overview, but if read together with the stories of individual survivors, it provides context for understanding the personal accounts.
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