The 62nd Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Yesterday was the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. If you want to get some sense of what those days were like look at Primo Levi's If This is Man [aka Survival in Auschwitz], especially the last chapters.

That section of this book, which stands head and shoulders above virtually all other memoirs, was very much -- and not enough -- with me when I was in Auschwitz two years ago. See my essay Cold published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.