James M. Deem’s The Prisoners of Breendonk: Personal Histories from a World War II Concentration Camp is an account of a relatively small prison in Belgium during the Second World War. Deems takes the investigatory path of many recent Holocaust scholars: he concentrates on a few individuals in a camp, both the victims and the tormentors, and through their story, tells the story of the camp at large.
What we get is almost a day-to-day account of life in Breendonk. He charts the course of the prison as the war proceeds, details how prisoners were tortured and killed, what they ate and where they slept. The prison was photographed for propaganda purposes, to show how well treated the inmates were. Despite this, the wealth of photographs can’t hide malnutrition and physical abuse. One prisoner was an artist, and the camp commander commissioned him to sketch prisoners for his private collection. The artist drew one for the commander, and one for himself. These drawings are startling, giving an inside, unexpurgated view of camp life.
Suddenly, reading about the Holocaust is quite important again. As the world contracts toward ridged nationalism and parochialism – reading accounts of the end result of this process, its most raw and inhuman form, is extremely relevant.
What we get is almost a day-to-day account of life in Breendonk. He charts the course of the prison as the war proceeds, details how prisoners were tortured and killed, what they ate and where they slept. The prison was photographed for propaganda purposes, to show how well treated the inmates were. Despite this, the wealth of photographs can’t hide malnutrition and physical abuse. One prisoner was an artist, and the camp commander commissioned him to sketch prisoners for his private collection. The artist drew one for the commander, and one for himself. These drawings are startling, giving an inside, unexpurgated view of camp life.
Suddenly, reading about the Holocaust is quite important again. As the world contracts toward ridged nationalism and parochialism – reading accounts of the end result of this process, its most raw and inhuman form, is extremely relevant.
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