World War II Database

In the novel The One Man, author Andrew Gross imagined a Jewish physicist who found himself at the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland, possession some knowledge that could have advanced the Manhattan Project. Meanwhile a Polish-born Jew who had lost his family to German brutality was given the near suicidal task of sneaking into Auschwitz to rescue the physicist. The build up to the story took a little bit, but from the moment that Blum succeeded in entering the camp it was quite a roller coaster ride for me. The author's historical research seemed to be rather inadequate (most Holocaust memoirs noted that the human sex drive was the first to go when the body was subjected to starvation and trauma, yet a forbidden romance featured prominently in the plot; prisoner identification tattoo numbering scheme; etc.), and stars seemed to have aligned far too many times for the plot to come together, but if I allowed myself to look past those weaknesses, it was rather enjoyable as a fictional thriller, and it served as a reminder of the Holocaust, something horrific that we collectively as humankind had committed, and we collectively as humankind needed to prevent.

I had reviewed this title in its audio book format. Edoardo Ballerini did a wonderful job with his performance.

The One Man had flaws in historic accuracy and it perhaps did not feature the greatest plot, but it did keep me rather entertained for many hours during my commutes to and from work. If you have not yet come across memoirs of concentration camp survivors, perhaps this book would serve as a nice introduction to pique your interest, before diving into more serious works such as Elie Wiesel's Night or Moritz Nachtstern's The Counterfeiter.