Philip Muller

Philip Muller is the author of the text and the primary participant in many of the situations described by the book; he was also an eyewitness to nearly all of the genocide perpetrated at Auschwitz during the Nazi holocaust. Muller, a Slovakian Jew, was born in Sered, Czechoslovakia, in 1922. In April, 1942, he was forcibly evacuated to Auschwitz I concentration camp with thousands of other Jews. Muller, like many others, was used as forced labor for about a one month period during which his health declined. One day he and his bunkmate, afflicted by thirst, sneaked to a feeding area and illicitly stole several drinks of tea. Caught in the act, the two men were beaten by Nazi guards and then assigned to Auschwitz's Sonderkommando, a group of inmates forced to work at corpse disposal through burial or, much more commonly, cremation. From May, 1942, until the evacuation of...