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A Documentary Novel
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
May 2011
On Sale: April 26, 2011
Featuring: Adam
384 pages
ISBN: 0374144060
EAN: 9780374144067
Hardcover
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Fantasy Historical
Dieter Schlesak’s haunting novel The Druggist of
Auschwitz—beautifully translated from the German by John
Hargraves—is a frighteningly vivid portrayal of the
Holocaust as seen through the eyes of criminal and victim alike. Adam, known as “the last Jew of Schäßburg,” recounts with
disturbing clarity his imprisonment at the infamous
Auschwitz concentration camp. Through Adam’s fictional
narrative and excerpts of actual testimony from the
Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial of 1963–65, we come to learn of
the true-life story of Dr. Victor Capesius, who, despite
strong friendships with Jews before the war, quickly aided
in and profited from their tragedy once the Nazis came to
power. Interspersed with historical research and the
author’s face-to-face interviews with survivors, the novel
follows Capesius from his assignment as the “sorter” of new
arrivals at Auschwitz—deciding who will go directly to the
gas chamber and who will be used for labor—through his life
of lavish wealth after the war to his arrest and eventual trial. Schlesak’s seamless incorporation of factual data and
testimony—woven into Adam’s dreamlike remembrance of a world
turned upside down—makes The Druggist of Auschwitz a vital
and unique addition to our understanding of the Holocaust.
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