Perspective

The book is related from the first-person perspective and is constructed as a memoir. Muller was forcibly deported to Auschwitz in April, 1942. He was deemed suitable for forced labor and in May, 1942, was assigned to the Sonderkommando, a team that helped build and then operate the gas chambers and crematoria of the extermination camp. He was evacuated in January, 1945, before the advancing Russian army. Muller subsequently survived additional hardships before being freed in May, 1945, after nearly three years as a Nazi prisoner.

Muller, clearly uniquely positioned to describe survival in Auschwitz, offers his reason for writing the autobiography as the moral requirement to bear witness to Nazi atrocities—a feeling implicit in the book's title. He does not attempt to offer a psychological critique or overarching history, but instead confines his observations to a personal nature: indeed, however, he saw more than enough. Thus, the dominant themes...