A scrupulously researched and dramatic remembrance … the author presents his findings with a remarkable blend of meticulousness and unabashed emotion, movingly communicating what he experienced during the process.
WHAT THEY DIDN'T BURN
For long moments I stare at my father’s calligraphic signature at the bottom of the tattered Nazi document, then at block numerals on the upper right – 177904 – his Auschwitz tattoo number. I wonder,
If one such document exists, might not others?
Mel Laytner covered local and international news as a reporter and editor for nearly 20 years in New York City and as a foreign correspondent in London and the Middle East for NBC News and United Press International.
Book Trailers...
What if you uncovered a Nazi paper trail that revealed your father as a man very different from the quiet, introspective Dad you knew…or thought you knew?
Growing up, Mel Laytner saw his father as a quintessential Type B, passive and retiring. As he uncovered the Nazi documents they didn't burn, another man emerged—a black market ringleader and wily camp survivor who made his own luck. Yet the tattered papers also shed light on painful secrets his father took to the grave.
Melding the intimacy of personal memoir with the rigors of investigative journalism, Mel also found octogenarian survivors who remembered his father from ghettos and camps and help unravel the complex truths surrounding the father’s life.
Much of this saga of quiet resistance is set in a notorious Auschwitz slave camp where, amid hard labor and easy death, Jewish kapos played blackjack with Nazi killers, prisoners engaged in a lively black market, and the Jewish head of the camp—very much an unsung Oscar Schindler—cajoled and bribed SS officers to save lives.
An inspiring true story of resilience and redemption,
What They Didn't Burn also shows how desperate refugees turned hopeful immigrants rebuilt their lives and families in the United States while struggling to overcome the lingering trauma that has impacted their children to this day.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews for
What They Didn't Burn
A memoir and history like no other Holocaust story…Its eye-opening impact makes What They Didn't Burn unparalleled, powerful, and essential reading that will ideally prompt debates and group studies about Holocaust survivors and Nazi experiences.
This book is meticulously researched and incredibly well-written…It's not dry and dusty, instead reads like fiction through good writing. It doesn't dramatize or become hyper emotional for effect. It's just so real. So frighteningly real and true… (click for full review)
Early Praise from Those Who Know...
" . . . A remarkable historiographical achievement that blends the narrative pleasures of a detective story with the intellectual fireworks of a micro-history. In tracing the evidence and reconstructing the facts concerning a single Auschwitz prisoner, Laytner has made a major contribution to the history of that camp and, as such, to our understanding of the Holocaust.
—ROBERT JAN van PELT, author,
The Case for Auschwitz, Evidence from the Irving Trial
"What a thrilling story of wartime survival! Mel Laytner has unraveled the secrets of his father’s past, balancing a son’s love and admiration with a reporter’s commitment to the facts. Chasing after hidden diamonds and digging up damning Nazi documents, Laytner weaves a tale of courage and luck that brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters. A great detective story — and an important work of history."
— ANN KIRSCHNER,
author, Sala’s Gift
"I know of no other work that so eloquently combines a dogged search for a Nazi paper trail of evidence and a son’s reconciliation with his family’s Holocaust legacy. What They Didn’t Burn is not only an engaging piece of rigorous research, but also a harrowing and heartwarming personal saga of discovery.”
—SCOTT MILLER, author, Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust
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