Wieslaw Kielar - Anus mundi

What's attractive about this hell walk - strange, so horror can also have charm? -, the person of the author himself, that of the thin, blond boy who spent five years in the shadow of death. He was nineteen years old when he received the number 290 in Auschwitz, and upon arrival he asked himself: "Auschwitz? The devil has heard of it. And what is a concentration camp like? I will soon find out."

As a matter of fact, he got to know him thoroughly over the course of five years. He learned all the "up-to-date" intricacies of the art of survival, the exchange value of tooth gold, cigarettes, potatoes, and the complete disregard for the value of human life.

And Kielar knew all kinds of death before he could know love, life. This black memoir is a guide to the underworld; it lists all the sights of hell and, like any good travel guide, it ends with a glossary of death, the colloquial German spoken by prisoners and jailers alike.

The reader is captivated by the author's individual charm and individual vision. And what we have said so many times: the generations born after the age of the death camps can get to know the world from this book, which is already distant, but which advancing humanity can never forget.