By Barbara Boehringer This book contains the fascinating and exciting story of one of many of Hitler's political opponents. It is a stark reminder of what total dictatorship can do - a system in which the prisoners became Hitler's unwilling executers. The author, tattooed with the prisoner's number 104338, wrote down his memoirs while he was in custody after WW 2. He had been accused of his function as concentration camp elder but had been acquitted according to testimonies from fellow prisoners. He describes with astonishing accuracy how his incarceration in Auschwitz and sub camps unfolded. Hermann Joseph was arrested as a suspect assassin of Hitler in the Buergerbraeu Cellar in Munich. However he was released after an impeccable alibi proving his innocence. As a SPD member (short for Social Democratic Party) a party forbidden in the Third Reich, he worked in the underground, constantly watched by the Gestapo that was waiting for an occasion to arrest him. Through adverse circumstances, his first wife betrayed him because he had an affair with a woman who later became his second wife. Out of hatred she reported his whereabouts to the Gestapo who arrested him again. He describes the life of himself and his fellow prisoners, the brutal unmerciful life dictated by a regime that tolerated no evasion. The cohesion of most prisoners against the guards was decisive for the survival of the individual. He was elected as a block-elder and describes this as follows: "I had no choice, although my longing was to be allowed to remain a prisoner without rank and responsibility, to use my professional knowledge, play my guitar and do my special tricks in order not to go under. I had learned to act like a soldier, survived with meager food rations and defended myself against the psychological wear and tear, the nervousness. I constantly felt death creeping through the camp." In detail he describes how the entanglements of life, in general but especially in concentration camps brought with it weaves and braids destinies. The "prisoner functionary" system was based on the absolute power of the SS in the concentration camps. The SS gave orders that the "prisoner functionary had to implement. If someone refused, he himself had to expect reprisals. The prisoner was forced to become an accomplice in order to survive. The subject of this book is highly topical as nowadays there is the danger of our society, if not vigilant and pricked up its ears, will slide back into a similar system filled with hatred, racism and extremism.
