Scheisshaus Luck Surviving the Unspeakable in Auschwitz and Dora Author: Pierre Berg with Brian Brock ISBN: 978-0-8144-1299-2 Pages: 304, $24.95, Publication Date: October, 2008, Hard Cover, No

[Clark Isaacs]

Clark says buy this book at your local book store. Click Here


Pierre Berg of Nice, France while 17, and with aspirations of being a hairdresser and a ladies man would never imagine that the unspeakable could happen to him. While visiting a friend who had a shortwave radio they both were sent to Nazi Concentration camps because the Gestapo banned all shortwave radio broadcasting. Pierre and his friend made broadcasts of Laurel and Hardy only to neighbors, but the Nazi’s suspected them of making long range broadcasts. Pierre was sent to Auschwitz and his friend was never heard from again.

Written with the assistance of Brian Brock, the story unfolds with twists and turns, in a style that reads like a novel, yet is really fatal for many of the people portrayed. Berg’s life is spared once due to the shaky hand of another prisoner who tattoos required numbers on his arm. One of the numbers is misread by a guard when he reports a serious infraction which Berg commits. This leads to the death by hanging of another prisoner instead of Berg because of the wrong number. After many months have passed, Berg learns of the death of this unfortunate prisoner. He attributes this to his outhouse luck!

He wears his camp stripes with a red triangle which connotes that he is not Jewish! Pierre Berg is a gentile! Interestingly, these events were written 50 years ago and the manuscript was put aside. Until recently, there was little interest in a tale written by a non-Jew. However, Berg in recent times has encountered many statements made by anti-Semitic people who have tried to raise doubts about the reality of the holocaust. Berg personally saw and experienced people who were killed for slight infractions, he witnessed starvation and death, and he also endured a death march. While all of this material was fresh in his mind, he wrote this narrative shortly after he obtained freedom.

What makes this book fascinating is Berg’s fluency in several languages, including German. Germans did not know he understood them and he often used this advantage in saving lives of others.

This book is highly recommended.

[Mari]

That sounds like a MUST read. I am also non Jewish, married to a Jewish man, but My Sweet Man tells me of a concept in which a person can be considered Jewish when they willingly put themselves in harm's way in order to protect or assist Jewish people. It's honorary, of course, but very meaningful. This man sounds like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time but by writing his experiences, he may have placed himself in honorary status.

Many nonJewish people followed their Jewish family into the transport trains during the holocaust, and other people also died in the camps, although not in nearly as great numbers. It was an incredibly unimagable evil that happened, a disgrace for the human race. Anyone who chooses to assauge his or her sensitivities by denying it needs to get a copy of the graphic book Judenhass by Dave Sim, or just pursue a little history.There are other evils continuing today and we need to be reminded what horrible acts the human ability to rationalize can dismiss.

Mari Sloan

[Clark Isaacs]

Interesting thing is the Pierre Berg lives in your area! Has been there for a number of years. Look up his website and you will see pictures of him as a young man and can listen to an interview of him today. He truly was a marvelous man. The limitations on space made me leave out a lot of the things that he did. He worked for the French Underground before he went away, he used his bicycle to deliver messages about troops and things that were going on.

One day I had a cousin of my ex-wife sit me down and tell of his experiences in Auschwitz and how he escaped and live for 3 years in the woods eating nuts and berries. Sleeping in barns and evading the Nazis. His wife and two children were killed. He has since passed, but what a pious man he was.

[Mari]

Sometimes it takes a horrible crisis and tragedy for you to know who you are. :-(