Last Stop Auschwitz

Eddy de Wind, a Dutch doctor and psychiatrist, was shipped to Auschwitz with his wife Friedel, whom he had met while volunteering in the Westerbork labour camp. On arrival, they made it through the brutal selection process and were put to work in the medical barracks. In their new life, each day, each hour became a battle for survival. For De Wind, this meant negotiating the volatile guards. For Friedel, it meant avoiding the inevitable fate of Joseph Mengele's medical experiments. Despite all this, love prevailed. Passing notes through the fence, sometimes stealing a brief embrace, Friedel and De Wind made it through. As the last Nazis fled at the end of the war, De Wind hid himself in an abandoned barracks and began to write with furious energy about his experiences at Auschwitz. The result is an extraordinary account of life as a prisoner, a near real-time record of the daily struggle, stress and horror, but also of the flickering moments of joy De Wind and Friedel found in each other. Last Stop Auschwitz is a document of the best and the worst of humanity, a reminder of what we as humans were - and are - capable of. A harrowing and eloquent account of suffering and survival, love and despair, it's a unique and timeless story that reminds us there is hope, even in hell. And it will linger with you long after the final page has been turned.