This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

Borowski was born in Soviet occupied Ukraine to Polish parents. His father was sent to a Soviet work camp, building the White Sea Canal, but was released in an exchange of prisoners with Poland. Upon his father's release, the family settled in Warsaw. Although not Jewish, Borowski was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 for subversive activities when he was caught surreptitiously printing his own poetry. He spent the rest of the war in Auschwitz and Dachau. The first piece of luck or fate that saved his life was the decision by the Nazis to stop exterminating non-Jewish prisoners two weeks before Borowski's arrival.

The series of stories contained in This Way for the Gas are all written in the voice of one prisoner, Tadeusz. Not unexpectedly the stories appear to be loosely autobiographical. Borowski's writing is not overloaded with emotion. It is descriptive and matter of fact. The day-to-day tone of the writing, writing that describes death and deprivation as normal events adds an emotional impact to the stories.

For example, in one scene the prisoner Tadeusz describes a football match played by the prisoners. He served as goalkeeper and described his walk to retrieve a ball that was kicked way over the net. As he walks to the ball he sees through the barbed wire fence truckloads of prisoners being herded through the gas chambers. Later in the match he has to retrieve another ball. As he returns to the goal he matter-of-factly estimates that 5,000 prisoners have been gassed between his retrieving the two balls. It is powerful story.

Equally compelling are stories that describe that numerous decisions Tadeusz and his fellow prisoners made every day in order to survive. Taking clothes from the luggage of prisoners destined for the gas in order to trade the clothes for bread. People fight for survival and despite a certain ethical code amongst prisoners (there are some things even the dying won't do) they all know that the steps they take to survive often means that someone else will perish. Borowski does not flinch from subjecting his alter ego and his fellow prisoners to a critical self-examination of these choices. Both Borowski and his narrator survived Auschwitz. But as you can see from these flawlessly executed stories the question of how much of one's humanity remains is a difficult question. The emaciated bodies of the survivors could often be repaired. But the sense of a moral inner flame extinguished by the acts required for survival is not so easily relit. The reader cannot help but wonder whether the lingering impact of those choices in Auschwitz somehow invariably led to the choice he made in July 1951.

Tadeusz Borowski's "This Way for the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen" is a wonderful example of how fiction can portray the horrors of genocide with an emotional clarity that non-fiction sometimes lacks. It ranks with Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales (the Gulag) as a monumental piece of remembrance presented in the form of sort stories, vignettes of life in a place with little mercy and less humanity. They each stand as stark testimony, even though they are works of literature and not history, to the "evil that men do."

Upon finishing "This Way for the Gas Ladies and Gentleman" I found myself wanting to repeat the words "never again" as a refrain. Yet upon reflection one looks at subsequent world events: Bosnia, Cambodia, Chechnya, Sudan, and Rwanda (among others) and asks whether humanity makes the phrase "never again" a futile gesture. It has been said that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Anyone who reads Borowski testament will long remember the prose that keeps us from forgetting.

You will not regret picking this book up and reading it.


Borowski's book is an essential read   December 5, 2001
24 out of 25 found this review helpful

Anyone who has more than a passing interest in Holocaust history should read this slender volume of stories; described as some of the finest ever written about Auschwitz. Seen through the eyes of Kapo Tadek, a Polish functionary prisoner, the tales engage the reader and challenge them to understand the concentration camp world on its terms. The stories are often cinematic in their scope and depiction and Borowski uses irony, pastoral descriptions and powerful characterisations suchs as Abbie and Moise (who finds family pictures after he sends his father to the gas chamber) to evoke the realities of Auschwitz. The narrative Borowski creates never allows the reader to sit in judgement on his characters and he reveals the inversion of morality and ethics necessary to survive. He also makes explicit the connection between Auschwitz and the world that fostered and allowed. it. A book that will change the way you think about the world and will challenge everything you think you know about the Holocaust.


Outstanding   March 8, 1999
20 out of 21 found this review helpful

Borowski was a Polish 21 year old whose parents had been in and out of the Soviet Gulag since he was 4 - when he was arrested, tortured and sent to Auschwitz. 23 when released, he wrote these astounding stories and then committed suicide when he was 29, 3 days after the birth of his child. His stories are dispassionate, acutely observed explorations of the moral universe that was warped and perverted by the concentration camp system. He confronts his own corruption. He creates an unavoidable connection between the world outside the KZ and the attempts at survival within. He shows us clearly how for some people, there was no healing. His stories have been beautifully translated into a simple, straightforward English. I would urge anyone interested in the Holocaust to read these extraordinary stories.


An unusual view of Nazi crimes, that deserves reading   December 20, 2000
10 out of 13 found this review helpful

I agree with the comments of the other (current) reviewer. I would also add that Czeslaw Milosz's the Captive Mind (also a good read, but on the evils of the far left rather than those of the far right) contains a brief character sketch of Borowski which is fascinating to read in conjunction with the Auschwitz Stories.


Moving   June 21, 2008
Dostoyevsky (Muswell Hill)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I found this book by chance. I think it is the most moving book I have read on this subject. Tadeusz comes across as a very strong person in the face of such horror. For someone so young he seemed to cope with it all in a heroic way. Sadly he fell apart in the end and could make no sense of it all even though he was free. He should be remembered more than he seems to be. I had not heard of him prior to reading this and I should have. He was in need of help just as much on his release as he had been in the camps. Maybe he needed more help outside as he was alone to ponder on the shock of all he had seen and realised that nothing had really changed in the outside world as a consequence of it.