Into the Darkness (Darkness #1)

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Perhaps the definition of a worthy book about the Holocaust is that it leaves you asking more questions than it answers. That, ultimately, it is unsatisfactory. Satisfaction, after all, allows one to move on.

Into the darkness | Books | The Guardian

Stangl lived with what he'd done for decades. The walls he built within himself were strong enough to withstand years facilitating mass-murder, a decade living free as a war-criminal, and a damning trial exposing the scope of his culpability. What ultimately brought Stangl's psychological fortress down was simply being asked to tell his life story in his own words. This was my third Barbara Michaels book and I keep falling in love with them harder the more I read. For me this book was all about secrets that families keep and the lengths people go to make sure they are never found out. The suspense is build up slowly with a few hints of danger and malicious gossip floating around in the air. The tension slowly builds until it boils over in a chaotic finale that gives you the pay off you are wanting the entire time you are reading this. Poi verifica le sue risposte incontrando la moglie di Stangl in Brasile, altri testimoni in parti diverse dell’Europa, consultando documenti e fonti. Una ricerca durata anni. An old (1990) Barbara Michaels I found at the library giveaway, that I hadn't read before! It was enjoyable. Who is sending antique rings with strangely ominous and threatening messages? Where did the ancient royal jewels come from? Who is this stranger her grandfather left half his business to? Not really a stranger, for some reason no one thinks 3 years is long enough to get to know someone.In 1934, while changing trains in Nuremberg on a journey home from school, she witnessed the Nuremberg Rally and was profoundly moved by the beauty of the spectacle, joining in the crowd's ecstatic cheering. These favourable impressions of the Nazis survived both a reading of Mein Kampf and the 1938 Anschluss, when Hitler annexed a quiescent Austria. The grim realities of Nazism, however, soon began to affect her life in Vienna where she was, by then, a drama student. Like the other two heroines I've read in Michaels' books, Meg is a strong, feisty indiviudal who doesn't have any problems giving her opinions or holding her own against the rest of the characters. She has her own distinct personality that is shaped by her and her own experiences, she isn't overly influenced by her family, eventhough she has a strong sense of loyalty to them. In what readers will probably find the most controversial aspect of the book Sereny makes quite clear that she believes Pope Pius XXII knew about what was going on in Poland and did next to nothing to help. The Vatican is part of the story, as it was the Vatican that helped Stangl (and many other Nazis) to flee Germany and settle in Brazil. While the section on the Vatican is long, it's also intriguing. I'll leave it to others to decide what the Pope could or should have done. It's clear, however, that Sereny believes he failed humanity. As Gitta Sereny learns more about his life she discovers that this man was a loving husband and father who wanted to protect his wife from the brutal reality. She finally learned about what was happening in Sobibor almost by accident.

Into The Darkness: A Mystery Thriller (Mitch Tanner Book 2)

How do you examine the conscience of an ordinary man who doesn't really want to be examined? For beneath the Austrian courtesies Franz Stangl suffers from a wir haben's nicht gewusst type of selective amnesia, until he dies of heart failure a few days after Sereny makes her farewell. You cast the net wider, over his wife in Brazil and smaller fish such as former camp guards, either pensioned off into respectable anonymity or presently incarcerated. Within hours of this last interview, Stangl was dead. Suicide was suspected, but the postmortem evidence pointed to heart-failure. The implication was clear; Stangl had been crushed by the culpability he had denied for so many years. It became clear that what he was most concerned about were what one might call the lesser manifestations of moral corruption in himself; what he did rather than what he was. It was his “deeds” – his relatively mild deeds – he was at great pains to deny or rationalize rather than his total personality change. Non lo è perchè l'autrice riporta fatti e documentazioni senza lasciarsi andare a divagazioni e interpretazioni (notevole è anzi la bibliografia che lei stessa ha consultato per la stesura del libro).All who lived within a few miles of the death camps knew what was going on. There were the trains and the smells. The people who worked the trains across Poland and throughout Europe, saw and heard the crowded and anguishing railroad cars filled with the starving and dying. The author is highly talented, and you can tell she wrote this book with her heart and soul. She went into a very deep, dark place with this one. That ending to me was everything and touched my soul. I will remember this book for years to come.

Into the Darkness | Book | Scribe US Into the Darkness | Book | Scribe US

Sereny fördjupar sig i Stangls snedvridna verklighetsuppfattning, förnekande attityd och uppbyggda fasad och skalar av lager efter lager för att slutligen avslöja den innersta kärnan. Var i processen han slutligen tappade fotfästet om verkligheten och sin egen moral. Var i processen han upphörde att vara människa. Hon kartlägger och ställer olika vittnesskildringar mot varandra. Likt ett fotografi i mörkrummet framträder de skuggor av minnen som utgör en bild av vad som en gång var. Små småningom blir skuggorna allt djupare, konturerna allt tydligare, kontrasterna allt skarpare och den gåtfulla mannen i centrum allt mer levande. Gestalten formas snart till en mänsklig varelse. Eller till ett monster. Stangl jämför Treblinka med Dantes inferno, som ”att stiga ner i en avgrund där orden förlorar sin mening”. Inte förrän det sista samtalet bryter sanningen igenom den före detta kommendantens illusion och han inser vem han var i helvetets avgrund. Sereny fångar bilden och med den fångar hon läsaren. Men egentligen hade det kunnat handla om det. Det är poängen och det man bör ta med sig efter att ha läst boken. Je suis Franz Stangl. Into That Darkness is written by Gitta Sereny who interviewed Franz Stangl (the commandant of Treblinka) while he was in prison. Stangl had escaped Germany at the end of WWII and was living in Brazil in 1967 when he was arrested outside his home, extradited to West Germany, and sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the deaths of 900,000 people. un libro importante, questo di Gitta Sereny, che porta luce “in quelle tenebre” (anche se, per quanta luce si possa gettare, per quanti studi e ricerche si possano fare, quelle tenebre rimangono oscure più del neropece): un libro che ho trovato citato poche volte, mentre mi sembra si ritagli uno spazio tutto suo, e non da poco.

Into the Darkness

The author tries to comprehend how this man, who is sitting in front of her and looks absolutely normal, ended up committing crimes against humanity. She also reported on the trials in Germany of Third Reich functionaries, including concentration camp staff, such as Franz Stangl, the former commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka. . Her book on Stangl, Into That Darkness (1974), remains one of the best books on the Third Reich and established Gitta's reputation as an authority on the history of the period. Both MC completely flawed with traumatic pasts and mental illness. These two belonged together. Each one understands the other and with no judgment. As much as I love both characters, Him’s was something else, to get into his head as to why and talking to his demon. Sereny's book weaves her conversations with Stangl with that of others that she interviewed within Stangl's orbit -- his wife, family, survivors of Treblinka, etc. She also verified various facts within the book with testimony at Stangl's and others' trials as well as with other Nazi documents. Sereny however, who was, after all, there in the room with Stangl, suggests that something had fundamentally changed in him during the course of the interviews: