The Childrens Block, Otto Kraus
The Childrens Block, Otto Kraus
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
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The Children's Block
A Novel Based on the True Story of an Auschwitz Survivor

Author: Otto Kraus

Narrator: Lewis Taylor

Unabridged: 8 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/19/2020


Synopsis

A literary event that tells the story of five hundred children who lived in the Czech Family Camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau between September 1943 and June 1944.

We lived on a bunk built for four but in times of overcrowding, it slept seven and at times even eight. There was so little space on the berth that when one of us wanted to ease his hip, we all had to turn in a tangle of legs and chests and hollow bellies as if we were one many-limbed creature, a Hindu god or a centipede. We grew intimate not only in body but also in mind because we knew that though we were not born of one womb, we would certainly die together.

Alex Ehren is poet, a prisoner, and a teacher in block 31 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, also known as the Children's Block. He spends his days trying to survive and illegally giving lessons to his young charges, all while shielding them as best he can from the impossible horrors of the camp. But trying to teach the children is not the only illicit activity that Alex is involved in. Alex is keeping a diary . . .

About Otto Kraus

Otto Kraus was born in Prague. He and his family were deported in May 1942 to Ghetto Terezin and from there to Auschwitz, where he became one of the children's counselors on the Kinderblock. He was married to Dita Kraus, whom he knew from the Kinderblock. She was the character on whom The Library of Auschwitz is based. Otto died at home on October 5, 2000, surrounded by his family.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Maria

A VIRAL NO Why the heck do we read so manny books about the Holocaust?! We all know how it begun, how it ended and what happened in between! So where’s the thrill?! The excitement?! The fun of it?!... In fact, when it takes to Holocaust, we are not reading for fun. We are reading cos we want to take......more

Goodreads review by Maria

Um Não Viral “O Fumo é meu irmão” Será por puro masoquismo que persistimos em ler livros após livros sobre o Holocausto?! Leituras penosas, transbordantes de sofrimento, dor, perfídia... que nos incomodam e perturbam até à medula! Não creio!... Se o fazemos é simplesmente porque queremos juntar o nosso......more

Goodreads review by Sarah

The Children’s Block is a novel that came together from a survivor's diary entries, although the author has incorporated his own experiences of his time in the camps, as well as used research and interviews so that he keeps it as true to what happened in them, as well as included some real life peop......more

Goodreads review by Gary.

No real thread to the narrative, while some parts of the book flow, most do not, the book was a struggle to read to the end.......more

Goodreads review by Anae

¡Qué historia tan terrible, tan horrible, tan espeluznante! Como bien dice el autor, no se cometió un Holocausto, sino que fueron millones los holocaustos cometidos. Conozcamos los errores del pasado para no volverlos a cometer en el futuro. Nunca más.......more