I could not agree more with Ms. Green's review and Des Pres' call for the return of the political in the personal and vice versa in the work of poets. Contemporary American poets to some degree sell out their talent and passion. Some of the best known poets have great PR agents (! ) and they want their flowers and accolades now, not later--that is their wont, I suppose. But, if there is wholesale hatred and murder and inhumanity any where on planet earth, there is wholesale hatred and murder and inhumanity EVERYwhere on planet earth...and poets give not only a voice, but a face, an emotion, and a truth that we can feel more than the speediness and the overreaching of images and 'Meet the Press' style posturings in today's media...Perhaps poets are inspired more if they see the wholesale hatred and murder and inhumanity firsthand...Des Pres' book have several excellent sections of biography and history and critique so well enmeshed so well that I find it stunning that the book is not considered for another pressing. Two of the especially well executed sections here are the one of Yeats and the rat rhymers (travelling troubadour-like bards and recitators--who does that sound like in today's time?) and of the great Bertold Brecht poetry from the 'dark times' of 1920's-1940's Germany--of which many of those years he was in exile. Where are the Greats, now? Does the situation has to arise to create them? Or are they somehow born with the talent and are producing the work and we have yet to discover them, en masse? These questions I truly cannot answer, but, again, in allusion to what I wrote above, a motor vehicle commercial proudly has the rhyme and voice of Dr. Sonia Sanchez...

Starting with a demonstration of how politics destructively invades the life of the individual in Sophocles' play Antigone, Des Pres goes on to show how personal and political intermix in the poetry of William Butler Yeats, Bertold Brecht, Breyten Breytenbach, Thomas McGrath, and Adrienne Rich. Des Pres calls for a renewal of American poetics through a renewal of its political commitment to witness and to speak for and against. It's a shame this book is currently out of print.

Des Pres examines literature, extreme circumstances and in particular the death camps in Nazi Germany to find out what is a human being after being stripped of everything .
I consider this book to be one of the most important in studies of this period and of the human condition in general. The bibliography of original testamony alone is worth the price.

Few historians have the stomach to tackle an in-depth historical survey of the Nazi Holocaust. Even fewer have the depth and intelligence to look deep into its many figures and faces to create a work of literature which deals with the ontological essence of humankind. Such an effort would seem like an unreachable and naive goal if it weren't so beautifully examined in Des Pres' book, in which he uses a wealth of haunting voices from the Holocaust to introduce his readers to a new chapter of the human spirit: the Survivor.

I have never read a more important or more accurate account of life in a concentration camp. Des Pres gives a new and important meaning to the word 'courage.' Des Pres' analysis of courage provides the lie to the depiction of Jews succumbing like sheep to the Nazi horror. He clearly demonstrates the courage it took to stay alive, to bear witness, to resist. Furthermore, he provides a base for understanding the meaning of the courage it took for Jews to survive 1,000 years of Christian efforts to debase Jews in their European diaspora- the courage to survive and live as Jews. I am only sorry that I did not discover this book earlier in my life.

A close and penetrating look at how the survivors of the Nazi and Stalinist death camps came through such horror in human ways. Des Pres explodes the myths about the Jews going to their deaths "like sheep;" of survivors saving their own lives by becoming amoral; of those who lived suffering from "survivor's guilt." Rather, says Des Pres, survivors felt an obligation to the dead to bear witness; survivors lived by maintaining their moral sensibilities and by cooperating with one another and sharing in each other's tribulations and successes; to survive in the conditions of extremity found in the death camps was, in itself, an act of resistance. Humans are social by nature of their very biology, says Des Pres, and this is perhaps our main hope in this century. His depiction of survivor as "hero" is a welcome contrast to the numerous dead heroes of Western literature -- and a necessary one in this century of atrocities. Des Pres also wrote _Praises and Dispraises: Poetry and Politics, the 20th Century_ and _Writing Into the World: Essays 1973-1987_ -- both important books about the social and political role of the poet (and other writers). It's unfortunate that these two volumes are currently out of print.

I have a morbid facsination with the Holocaust and Holocaust literature so I picked up Treblinka. I was not prepared for what was in it, how it would make me feel. I couldn't put it down. For two days I lived and breathed Treblinka, for two days I was beaten, starved, tortured, I saw my family gassed, I saw my fellow inmates hang themselves because death was better than this hell on earth. For two days I was an inmate of Treblinka because Jean-Francois Steiner put me there. Treblinka is quite possibly the most important piece of Holocaust literature ever written. It is non-fiction but it reads like a novel. It told me more about the death camps and Nazi regime than all of the books I have read combined. The most amazing thing about Treblinka though was the psychology behind it all. It gave answer to my question: Why did they not revolt before this? Why did they simply allow themselves to be led to death? On the third day I rose from the bottom of the abyss, I revolted, I left Treblinka along with 700 Jews, survivors of hell. I left but I didn't escape, no one escapes Treblinka. Like how Treblinka will always hold it's prisoners, Treblinka will always hold it's readers in it's mental grasp.

Treblinka is an incredible recreation of the human elements of the Holocaust. It portrays real, historical people who as innocent victims and against all odds, not only stayed alive but were able to organize a suicidal uprising, with the sole objective being the successful escape and survival of just One human being, in order to bear witness and testify to the hell and death of the infamous Treblinka. As a historian of the Holocaust I'm certain that this is the most important literary piece that one could find. This book will shock and infuriate you, but ultimately you will find it to be about hope and life. It is a must read for anyone who wants to be an additional witness to the most horrific chapter in the history of our world! This is one of those rare treasures that is truly capable of positively influencing one's life!

A chance meeting with a university professor in NY years ago caused me to ask the question of what was it really, really like to exist in a place of complete insanity; where you were placed at risk of death at every moment, where every act, every gesture could be your last. What sort of social structure could possibly evolve in such indescrible conditions where inmate sometimes turned on inmate for a crust of bread. And yet in this dark chaos an order did evolve. The inmates organized themselves to such an extent that they ultimately rose up in rebellion, overpowering their opressors and a small number actually escaped.

I have read numerous books on the Holocaust but none of those prepared me for Steiner's superb work. Many of the works I've read concerned Auschwitz. Frankly, I never focused on Treblinka. As there is a relatively large number of Auschwitz survivors, I suspect scholars tend to focus on them. As far as Treblinka survivors go... there were only 75. Steiner's descriptions are so overwhelming; his imagery so clear and lucid that you can see in your own mind, the acts of brutality and barbarism, as well as small acts of kindness as if you are actually there. I found myself cringing at the blows of the clubs and the slash of the whips. And yet he takes pains to describe acts of heroism one can hardly imagine. You see how exposure to this inhumanity affects the inmates. Some degenerate while others work at mostly futile individual escape attempts in order to warn the remaining Jews of what ultimately lies in wait at the railhead at Treblinka Station.

This is strong stuff and is not for everyone. This is not a book that compiles statistics but rather paints a searing description of day-to-day life with the inmates, their struggles to make it another day, their planning and finally their courageous attempt to escape.

If you make it through this book, read Kogon's "The Theory and Practice of Hell" and then the next time you see "ethnic cleansing" taking place in some remote venue such as the Balkans, Rawanda or Timor ask yourself just how far we've really come and how easily we've learned to mouth the words "never again".