The Angel of Zin - a book review

I just finished reading this excellent book tonight, 30 August 2013 and feel compelled to give a brief review of this book published some twenty-nine years ago – not just to add my little bit to the memory of this terrible blot on the sanity of the human race, but also to further the thrust of Mr. Irving’s commentary of how normal seemingly decent human beings can be led to accept unthinkable acts of depravity against another group of people.   His perceptive prose is not an indictment of the German people, but rather an indictment of the human race in general.  I can do no better than to quote the first three paragraphs of his thoughtful preface:

“Zinoswicz-Zdroj (the Zin of the title) will not be found on any map of Poland.  Its physical and administrative details are borrowed from Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka.  More successful revolts similar to the one described, in fact occurred at Treblinka, Sobibor, Kolcyczewo, and other smaller work camps.

Writing in The New York Times of 5 December 1982, Michiko Kakutani warned that ‘. . . a kind of intellectual distancing has begun to occur in depictions of the Holocaust, which threatens to trivialize, even distort, the actual event.’ “

- and here Mr. Irving gives a thoughtful  comment on the duties of an author – and in particular in answer to the above Times quote –

“It is a writer’s obligation to make you see, feel and ponder; the writer does not trivialize or distort historical events by shaping them into a design that is more visible, more deeply felt.  It is not instructive to say, ‘Six million Jews were killed.  These Nazi murderers were beasts.’  Unless we are content to be victims of media simplism, it is necessary to know the names of some of those six million (even if some of those names are fictionalized), to see their faces, to emphasize with their experience.  It is also necessary to view the murderers not as beasts but as men and women who abdicated their humanity in favor of warped visions, brute economic need, and a dreadful conformity.  Because as Mordecai Lieberman is quoted as saying, ‘Perhaps this is just the beginning of man’s possibilities.’ “

I hope more of today’s vocal pundits and blind followers would heed that comment  “. . . who abdicated their humanity in favor of warped visions, brute economic need, and a dreadful conformity.” and that you too gentle reader might read this book and not only feel empathy with the dread plight of those Jewish people trying to hold on to dignity while being prepared for the ultimate indignity but also feel empathy with those of the human persuasion of today who are different from you by virtue of birth or blind luck of the draw in economic level.  This is a great book worth spending some hours in reading.