The family was taken directly from their home to the railway station, placed in crowded freight wagons and transported under such conditions. Upon arrival, the men in their twenties and forties were separated from the others. Johann was included in this group.
We follow the dramatic fate of the mother of five children in the catastrophic conditions of the Birkenau camp, with no sewage system, where a part of the section is under construction, the food rations supplied are insufficient, and where conflicts ensue between prisoners.
As the author writes, the camp doctor Josef Mengele appears on the first day of their stay in the camp. The author sets the time of the event in May 1943, and this is where the first serious inaccuracy appears, as preserved SS-Hauptsturmführer documentation proves that Josef Mengele began work at KL Auschwitz on 30 May 1943, which suggests that the earliest he could have begun work as a camp doctor is in the last days of the month, not earlier.
The author portrays Mengele as a very gallant scientist who addresses the prisoners, doctors and Helena Hannemann herself in a cultured manner: ... That is why I want you to become the director of the preschool, Kindergarden, which I intend to open in Auschwitz-Birkenau. (...) I will provide you with all the necessary supplies: food, new clothes, milk, films for children (p. 77).
In explaining the circumstances of the experiments, he supposedly addressed the assembled prisoners as follows: ... Dear colleagues, let me introduce you to the new members of our team. Dr Zosia Ulewicz will be my personal assistant in the laboratory that I intend to open in the sauna. Dr Berthold Epstein, a prominent paediatrician, will assist us with the children. As you can see, we receive invaluable support from the Emperor Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, especially from Director von Verschuer (p. 74).
Preserved accounts of former prisoners or their published memoirs do not confirm such intimacy between Josef Mengele and the prisoners.
The author also writes about Mengele's brutality and the illegitimacy of his experiments, which involved bonding two boys like Siamese twins, leading to the death of the children and their mother (p. 191). He also describes an argument that ensued between Helena Hannemann and Josef Mengele, during which the agitated doctor supposedly put a gun to the prisoner's temple (p. 194, 195).
We also read that Josef Mengele was a football lover and watched matches in Birkenau: ... A match was about to begin; people gathered to watch the SS and Sonderkommando teams from the crematoria compete for ninety minutes on the trodden earth (p.192). As we know, football matches were played in Birkenau, but the players were prisoners, most often functionary prisoners.
The author's decision to include two camp supervisors, Marie Mandel and Irma Grese, in the story of the Zigeunerlager is completely incomprehensible. They were both stationed at the Frauenlager site in Birkenau and had no official duties in the Roma camp. Although, he justifies his decision:
...In the profiles of the Nazi guards Irma Grese and Maria Mandel, I tried to get as close as possible to the historical truth. Rumours circulated that the former, a very beautiful and yet extremely cruel young woman, was Dr Mengele's lover, who had a miscarriage during her stay in the camp. According to the book Maria Mandel, on the other hand, took a liking to one of the gypsy children, but had to split up with him when he was condemned to death. (p. 220)
As he claims ... The entire medical staff mentioned in the book are true figures (p. 220); however, he attributes too much significance to some people in the history of the Roma camp. The mentioned doctor - prisoner Roman Zenkteller (the book retains the incorrect spelling Senkteller), had plenty of tasks entrusted to him in the prisoner hospital for men, but not in the Roma camp, and had to deal with the so-called noma cases: ... Dr Senkteller and Ludwik told me that some children had a strange disease visible on their faces and genitals (p. 168).
The plan of the Roma family camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau