THE OTHER KINGDOM

by David Rousset ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 1947

With sobriety, yet effective eloquence, this is a record of ""the other kingdom"" (or the concentrationary universe) by a French professor who joined the underground, and then was a victim of four concentration camps. This is both a more human and a more humane account than Dungeon Democracy by Christopher Burney (Duell, Sloan & Pearce), with none of the bitterness, or the bigotry of that book. Rousset writes briefly, movingly, of the men, haggard and savage, their ""faiths uprooted, dignities undone""; of the hard labor lines at dawn; the obsessions at night; of the variations of torture; of the hierarchy of the common criminals,- whore, pimp, thief over the political prisoners; of the metaphysics of expiation, by dying slowly, and as painfully as possible; of the table of organization of the camps; and of the prevailing greed, cowardice, brutality, ""scatological gluttony"" of which not only the German nation -- but any nation- is capable. Something between a prose poem and an essay, this is unusual in its writing. Unfortunately, the market for this sort of material is hard to find -- though it should be read.

Pub Date: July 21, 1947

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Reynal & Hitchcock

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1947

Categories: NONFICTION