#Book Review #A Gypsy In Auschwitz: How I Survived the Horrors of the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’ #Otto Rosenberg #Publisher: Monoray/Octopus books #Non Fiction Holocaust Biography

 

MY THOUGHTS AND BOOK REVIEW

I really enjoyed this memoir written by Otten Rosenberg about the WW2 events, A Gypsy In Auschwitz,  on racially forced labour camps in Nazi Germany. Otto Rosenberg was from a German Sinti family, born in Draugupone, East Prussia, in 1927. He was sent to live with his grandmother because his parents separated around that time. Otto Rosenberg belonged to one big family in those concentration camps. Later after the concentration camp he was back with his grandmother after living with his dad at the age of five in berlin. He was always hungry as a boy, if he wanted to eat something he needed to work long and hard for it. He was closer to his grandmother than to his own parents. Thier final move to sandbcaher weg in Altglienicke - Bonsdorf district. He also started school here. He experienced his share of discrimination and fought back against the children who tried to put him down. 

One morning they were loaded into trucks by the stormtroopers and the police, removing them from a private camp. They were carted off to Berlin - Marzahn, or it was officially known, Berlin Marzahn Ratplatz. This was in 1936, before the Olympic games when Otto turned nine. Otto's uncle was among the men where sent to other camps which drove them on trucks to Sachsenhausen in Orantenburg. Some nine hundred to a thousand people were living at Moarzahn camp, Roma along with Sinti. The Sinti included name of his aunts, uncles and other relatives, including his grandmother's sister and her sons. They were a massive family. Otto was always hungry. Having nothing to eat drove him to tears. His grandmother couldn't earn big bucks has she received no money to save for her Welfare support. Otto worked and helped farmers to earn 75 pfennings for his food to be well fed. They lived in caravans and huts at Marzahn. Police went every morning to certain huts and caravans took people away, never to be seen again. In ever increasing numbers people were ordered to report to Alexanderplatz, Dircksenstrabe, Berlin C2, and Leo Karsten at the Gypsy department. This man in charge was Karsten. Otto had to leave school at the age of 13. His grandmother was dependent on welfare and it was up to him to support her. He was on top of the world has he started earning in a factory in an armament factory in Berlin- Lichtenburg. Otto was spotted smuggling a "burning glass - lens that has been used to check the canisters for defects and cracks which makes everything look massive. Karmer the chief foreman saw what he did, unscrewing the lens and taking it off with them which was called a burning glass. Otto was escorted to the police station which was utterly humiliating and distraught. He was chained and arrested on the whole burning glass affair and locked in a cell. He was taken to Dircksen strabe - and he was handcuffed and put on a transport to Moabit prison, Berlin 12A. He was sentenced to three months and three weeks in youth detention for sabotage - and theft of Wahrmacht property. He served four months in prison and was taken back to Dircksenstrabe - this to Gypsy Department.  He was still classed as a prison inmate and was put in a special carriage. The police put him in a cell by the door into the carriage and locked him there. The police left and the military took over the transport - when he turned 16 the train arrived in Auschwitz. He was taken to Grob - Auschwitz, the big main camp. Otto became sick twice, First time he collapsed with a fever. The second time he was covered with scabies head to toe. It was awful. He has no idea how he managed to survive Auschwitz. He still cannot fathom it to this day. It was certainly great deal of luck and he believed a protective hand held over him, shielding him from harm. 

This remarkable story was moving, heartbreaking, and an incredible account given by Otto Rosenberg. He witnessed violence and abuse by SS, quite horrifying. The mass extermination was called off, and Otto went on living in Auschwitz until August 1944 when a transfer was arranged.  All those who were fit to work were transported to Buchenwald. He learned that the entire Birkenau Gypsy camp had been liquidated Including his grandmother and cousins and grandchildren who had remained in Auschwitz. They killed every last one of them.

I just reviewed #A Gypsy In Auschwitz: How I Survived the Horrors of the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’ by Otto Rosenberg. Thanks to Publisher Monoray and NetGalley for an advance copy for my honest review.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Otto Rosenberg is 9 and living in Berlin, poor but happy, when his family are first detained. All around them, Sinti and Roma families are being torn from their homes by Nazis , leaving behind schools, jobs, friends, and businesses to live in forced encampments outside the city. One by one, families are broken up, adults and children disappear or are 'sent East'.

Otto arrives in Auschwitz aged 15 and is later transferred to Buechenwald and Bergen-Belsen. He works, scrounges food whenever he can, witnesses and suffers horrific violence and is driven close to death by illness more than once. Unbelievably, he also joins an armed revolt of prisoners who, facing the SS and certain death, refuse to back down. Somehow, through luck, sheer human will to live, or both, he survives.

The stories of Sinti and Roma suffering in Nazi Germany are all too often lost or untold. In this haunting account, Otto shares his story with a remarkable simplicity. Deeply moving, A Gypsy in Auschwitz is the incredible story of how a young Sinti boy miraculously survived the unimaginable darkness of the Holocaust.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Monoray (August 4, 2022)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 4, 2022
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 240 pages