Into the Darkness (Darkness #1)

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She returned to Paris four months after the war ended, to join the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, working with orphans in a ravaged Europe. The framework of what was to be her life's work – the exploration of childhood trauma and the nature of evil – was in place. It was in postwar Paris, in 1948, that she met and married the photographer Don Honeyman, with whom she was to have a son and a daughter. Don, who died last year, was to prove a good humoured and profoundly supportive companion who accompanied Gitta through the long and painstaking research that became a hallmark of her work. Sereny's book weaves her conversations with Stangl with that of others that she interviewed within Stangl's orbit -- his wife, family, survivors of Treblinka, etc. She also verified various facts within the book with testimony at Stangl's and others' trials as well as with other Nazi documents.

Into the Darkness: Book One of The Darkness Series eBook

un libro importante, questo di Gitta Sereny, che porta luce “in quelle tenebre” (anche se, per quanta luce si possa gettare, per quanti studi e ricerche si possano fare, quelle tenebre rimangono oscure più del neropece): un libro che ho trovato citato poche volte, mentre mi sembra si ritagli uno spazio tutto suo, e non da poco. On 2 December 2010, the body of a 24-year-old woman was found at the bottom of the rubbish chute in the luxury Balencea tower apartments in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, twelve floors below the apartment she had shared with her boyfriend, Antony Hampel. Into That Darkness is written by Gitta Sereny who interviewed Franz Stangl (the commandant of Treblinka) while he was in prison. Stangl had escaped Germany at the end of WWII and was living in Brazil in 1967 when he was arrested outside his home, extradited to West Germany, and sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the deaths of 900,000 people. For a change, there is never anything supernaturally suspected in this novel, nor do we have the huge, rambling Victorian house. There's of course the trademark cat that gets in the way, coupled with typical character humor. It's almost more of a Elizabeth Peters mystery than a Barbara Michaels one, so don't go in expecting the typical. Instead Michaels seemed to want to focus the energy she usually spends on ghosts in mansions on the mystery of old jewelery. Not as fun to me, but still a worthy venture. She seems to have either thoroughly done the needed research, or else has knowledge about jewelry as much as she does houses, cats, the supernatural, and Egypt. You will know more on old jewelry and rose gardening by the time the book is through, yet thankfully it's not given in a preachy manner, and only a need-to-know basis. Into The Dark is what I look for in any dark romance. Pushed my boundaries and delivered a phenomenal book. I highly recommend it to all my dark romance readers.

Furthermore, her book ‘Albert Speer, His Battle With Truth’ (1995), later dramatised by David Edgar at the National Theatre, repeatedly challenges Speer's contention that he too was ignorant of the fate of the Jews under the regime he had served so faithfully. Blessed with a fiery, feisty, conscience-plagued heroine, the mixing pot of people was fun as always. Meg's nasty temper and sharp tongue seemed lovingly adored by her hysterical relative Cliff, while her softened attitude never seemed to ruffle the mysterious partner, Riley. The grandmother was an enjoyment to read about, too, as her eccentric personality brought a smile to my face.

Into the darkness | Books | The Guardian

She does succeed in exposing some of his inner demons. She also spoke extensively to his wife who came to know through a third party (another SS man) what was really going on at Sobibor. His wife never went to the death camps, they would see each other at a villa, miles from the camps.In Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, author Paul Bloom describes: ...this is because the thought of touching the man, of laying your hands on him and shoving, gives rise to a powerful emotional response, much more than the thought of just throwing a switch, and this is why most people see this act as morally wrong (p.169). This concept is illustrated time and again in Stangl's perception of his actions at Treblinka. Stangl's wife, Therese, recounts a conversation with her husband she had after he received his appointment at the Sobibor extermination camp: I said, 'I know what you are doing in Sobibor?...What are you doing in this?'...he said...'I have nothing to do with any of this...My work is purely administrative...Oh yes, I see it. But I don't do anything to anybody.'(p.136) This theme plays again when Stangl vehemently denies having ever fired a gun into a group of people who were, hours later, gassed en mass in an operation he was overseeing. However, Stangl was not a fanatic. He sought, according to his own confessions, to do his job as it should be done. Stangl wants to convince the author that he did not have another choice. The former commandant attempts to shift the blame onto Globocnik, who was his superior and had been responsible for the murder of around three million men, women, and children. Stangl seems to have thought that Globocnik would not allow him to get out. If he had rejected his appointment as commandant of the extermination camps he would have been arrested or even killed. But the truth is no one can say what could have happened to Franz Stangl had he firmly refused to do what he did. Gitta Sereny is perhaps the most thorough, meticulous interviewer I've ever read. As if she's unpeeling an onion layer by layer, she leads us into the life and mind of her subject, the former Kommandant of Treblinka, Franz Stangl, and makes us feel, whether we want to or not, as if we know him and understand him. And that is a huge accomplishment, because it isn't easy to understand what motivated a man like Stangl, what kept him loyal to and even proud of his "work," and how he (and his family) lived with the knowledge of what he was part of. When Stangl was finally caught and brought to trial, he accepted no guilt, stubbornly insisting that he was just a man who had done his duty. The court convicted Stangl of war crimes and sentenced him to life in prison. Many of the people who went on to work in the death camps got their start in the euthanasia program. Psychologically, they were inured to the idea of murdering innocent people as being their job. Pressure was exerted from above to keep officers and guards in their places. Stangl was moved from Hartheim to Sobibor, where he made the leap from running a euthanasia clinic to a death camp. One of the most fascinating aspects to me was that there were certain moments when Stangl could have refused to cooperate without sacrificing himself or his family. He chose not to do that, but rather to go along with the program.