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The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau | 
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| Creators: Leon Wieseltier, Ann Weiss, James E. Young
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy Used: $18.95
You Save: $21.00 (53%)
New (6) Used (12) from $18.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 1303703
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.8
Dimensions (in): 10.4 x 8.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0393016706
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.53180922
EAN: 9780393016703
ASIN: 0393016706
Publication Date: January 15, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The Last Album by Ann Weiss contains images selected from a collection of about 2,400 personal photographs that belonged to Jews who taken to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The pictures were found after the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. No other such collection is known to exist, because personal photographs were among the property that was systematically destroyed when Jews arrived at the camps. It is difficult to describe the experience of seeing these photographs, whose power lies in their subjects' innocence: "Regard these doomed and ferociously normal people," writes Leon Wieseltier (author of Kaddish), in his foreword to the book. The people in the pictures are relaxing at the beach, playing the piano, getting married, looking in the mirror, climbing mountains, climbing trees. Wieseltier explains what kinds of knowledge, love, and memory are at play in the experience of paging through The Last Album: "We do not know the names of the people in these photographs, but we know something just as precious, just as binding: we know the objects of their devotion, who and what they loyally loved. We have been initiated by their deaths into their intimacies. We remember what they wished to remember; and in the memory of their memory, they live." --Michael Joseph Gross
Book Description
A stirring collection of intimate photographs, the personal treasures of Jewish deportees to Auschwitz. With a foreword by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel and an introduction by Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic. In October of 1986, during a tour of Auschwitz, Ann Weiss made a remarkable discovery: She came across over 2,400 photographs depicting Jewish deportees and their families from across Eastern Europe. These pictures evidently belonged to a trainload of prisoners arriving in 1943 and were among the few valued personal possessions they had been able to salvage from home. Rather miraculously, the photographs survived and remained hidden, virtually forgotten, in the archives of Auschwitz for over forty years. Weiss spent a decade traveling the world in an effort to uncover traces of the people depicted in the photographs and research their personal histories. Following every possible lead, she was able to identify many of them and track down friends, relatives, and survivors in Europe, Israel, and America, slowly piecing together lives destroyed by the Holocaust. This volume represents a selection of over 400 images and the stories behind them, showing those portrayed "as they were in life, not as the victims they became in death." An exhibition of the photography, curated by the author, continues to travel throughout the world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
A 'must' for any serious Jewish history collection - and many a general interest holding, as well March 3, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The updated, expanded edition of The Last Album: Eyes From The Ashes Of Auschwitz- Birkenau is out, and no less hard-hitting than the original. These black and white photos were not supposed to reach the world: the Nazi order to destroy all personal photos brought to each concentration camp was meant to destroy memories as much as evidence. Despite this mandate, author Weiss uncovered an archive of over 2,400 photos brought to Auschwitz by Jewish deportees across Europe - photos hidden and saved, at great risk to their owners. These photos accompany a traveling exhibition which is making its way around the world, presenting over 400 of these photos and how the deportees arrived at Auschwitz - and how Weiss came to discover them and to research their roots. A 'must' for any serious Jewish history collection - and many a general interest holding, as well.
Memorial Day May 28, 2003
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I read this book by chance, yesterday, Memorial Day 2003.
Been crying.
It's like Schindler's List or Sophie's choice.
How could they do it?
How can we let them continue doing it?
The animals still are around us, although using another names, another symbols, another motivations.
I kept reading, hoping to find some of the people to be safe at the end, but almost everybody was killed.
Binim, Rozak, Mayer, Bronka, so many of you.
I miss you, my friends.
Should be required reading April 29, 2002
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
After reading this book, I feel this should be in every house in every country. You hear so much about the people and the numbers killed that sometimes it doesn't seem real but this book makes it very real. The pictures are so powerful and at the same time so ordinary - they could be pictures of anyone's parents or grandparents. The most haunting pictures are those of the children - you have to wonder how many survived. The stories of the survivors bring it all home - "There's the aunt of the little girl I used to babysit", etc. I found it amazing that these pictures did survive 40, 50 years before being discovered again. Anyone who denies the Holocaust happened should read this book and then try to still say it never happened. Thank you Ann Weiss for bringing these pictures and the stores behind them out of the darkness.
The Last Album October 4, 2001
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"The last Album" by Ann Weiss is well organized and well written. It contains 400 remarkable
photographs that were brought to Auschwitz-Birkenau by victims in 1943. These photographs were taken
prior to the Holocaust and depict people bursting with life. This is an extremely unique book, and contains material that was lovingly researched for a period of 15 years. The beauty of this book is that the
photographs and the research accomplished brings to life people that were lost during the dreadful time of
the Holocaust. The book like the author is soft, sweet, articulate and brilliant
Amazing piece of history.............. August 16, 2001
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is an amazing piece of history. The fact that so many photos brought into Auschwitz have survived is phenomenol as all personal effects were automotically burned by the Nazis murderers. When viewing the photos in this book, which were brought in by those of the Sosnowiec-Bendzin transport, it would also be advisable to read Tadeusz Borokowski's book "This way to the gas ladies & gentleman' as this book covers the particular Sosnowiec-Bendzin transport and outlines in gruesome and terrifying detail what became of many of those on this transport. The photographs bring back to life many who are gone and also tells you those who survived, which is a relief to realise that some of those from the Polish ghettos made it. These photos bring back a lost world that will never return and along with Roman Vishniac's collection of photographs are a piece of history that is very much worth investing in.
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