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Description:

Don't come looking to these books for your Monday pick-me-up…unless a good cry really does a lot to lift your spirits. Seriously, we warned you.

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Transcript

00:04

Survivor Memoirs, a la Shmoop. Let's get one thing straight... survivor memoirs

00:08

aren't in-depth looks at the lives of former reality television stars. Although we're

00:13

sure those would be fascinating as well...

00:16

Rather, survivor memoirs are works by people who either survived a concentration camp,

00:22

or who based their stories on the experiences of someone who did. We're talking REAL survivors.

00:28

The important thing to remember is that, no matter what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad <<mah-mood

00:33

ah-mah-DIH-nee-zhahd>> says...

00:34

...these works, and the Holocaust they recount, aren't fiction.

00:40

Let's start with Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night. Wiesel was deported to Auschwitz in 1944,

00:48

along with every other Jew in his hometown.

00:51

Wiesel, however, not only survived Auschwitz, but a death march to Dachau<<da-COW>>. Eventually,

00:57

he became a journalist. The first version of Night was published in

01:00

Yiddish and was over 900 pages long. Just be thankful you don't have to read that version...

01:03

Wiesel later edited his memoir down to a much, much shorter text. Granted, even the abridged

01:08

version of Night didn't sell many copies at first, because the Holocaust makes for a depressing

01:13

read.

01:13

By 1997, however, Night was selling about 300,000 copies a year, and that was before

01:18

Oprah picked it for her book club and passed out copies to her audience.

01:22

In 1986, Weisel also won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work against violence and racism.

01:29

Another famous memoir was written by Primo Levi<<Pree-mo leh-vee>> who was born in Italy

01:33

in 1919. Levi was extraordinarily smart and, despite rampant prejudice against Jews, he

01:39

was allowed to study chemistry at the university in Turin.

01:42

Unfortunately, by the time Levi graduated, Italy had officially become the sniveling

01:47

minion to Germany's big, nasty bully. In 1943, Levi joined the Italian resistance

01:54

movement. He was really bad at it...

01:57

...like, really bad...

01:58

...and was quickly arrested by the Germans. He admitted to being Jewish in order to avoid

02:03

being shot, and was sent to Auschwitz.

02:05

The end result was his memoir Survival in Auschwitz, which he wrote shortly after his

02:10

release from the camp in 1945. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is different from

02:16

both Night and Survival in Auschwitz in two major ways. Its author was never in a concentration

02:21

camp... and Maus is a graphic novel.

02:25

Spiegelman's parents were Polish Jews, who came to New York after World War Two. Their

02:30

story is the one Spiegelman relates in Maus. Originally a three-page strip for an underground

02:32

series of comics called Funny Animals, the first volume of Maus came out in 1986. It

02:36

proved incredibly popular, and a second volume came out in 1991.

02:41

In 1992, Spiegelman won a special Pulitzer Prize for Maus. Since then, the graphic novel

02:47

has become a serious form of art, helped along by Spiegelman's success in tackling a topic

02:52

as difficult as the Holocaust. Another memoir was written by Simon Wiesenthal<<wise-en-thall>>,

02:58

Nazi hunter. Seriously... that was his job.

03:08

After World War Two ended and Wiesenthal was released from Mauthausen<<mout-house-en>>,

03:12

he immediately became involved in tracking down, arresting, and trying Nazi war criminals.

03:17

He also founded the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, which has tracked down hundreds

03:21

of Nazi war criminals, many of whom escaped to places like South America.

03:26

His memoir, The Sunflower, is probably less factual than some of the other books you're

03:34

going to read...

03:35

...but when fact is as gruesome as the Holocaust was...

03:38

...sometimes a little fiction can be a welcome device.

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