
The Children's Block
A Novel Based on the True Story of an Auschwitz Survivor
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Narrated by:
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Lewis Taylor
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By:
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Otto Kraus
About this listen
A literary event that tells the story of 500 children who lived in the Czech Family Camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau between September 1943 and June 1944.
We lived on a bunk built for four but in times of overcrowding, it slept seven and at times even eight. There was so little space on the berth that when one of us wanted to ease his hip, we all had to turn in a tangle of legs and chests and hollow bellies as if we were one many-limbed creature, a Hindu god or a centipede. We grew intimate not only in body but also in mind because we knew that though we were not born of one womb, we would certainly die together.
Alex Ehren is poet, a prisoner, and a teacher in block 31 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, also known as the Children's Block. He spends his days trying to survive and illegally giving lessons to his young charges, all while shielding them as best he can from the impossible horrors of the camp. But trying to teach the children is not the only illicit activity that Alex is involved in. Alex is keeping a diary....
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What listeners say about The Children's Block
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- TMP
- 05-11-23
A sobering inside look at the children's block
The narration was excellent and the story very well-written. It kept my interest and incorporated well-researched historical details. But I have 4 starts because the ending seemed very abrupt and there was no epilogue or note to the reader to explain what was missing.
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- Queen's Jester
- 11-10-23
Well written, often poetic
Slow start, but then it came alive. Definitely on my list of top 50 WW2 historical fiction.
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- Alexandria Taylor
- 08-11-23
Basically Holocaust porn
I get that in the darkest times people are still people, but this just felt like a man describing naked women constantly throughout the book. It was uncomfortable to read, and not in the sense of the Holocaust is uncomfortable in and of itself because of what happened, but because I don’t want to hear about how a woman is embarrassed and shamed and humiliated, but her nipples looked beautiful. I feel like it was cruel.
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- Kkkkjkkk
- 12-23-23
Did not like
Did not like. I wish I could get my credit back did not this really at all
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