of Auschwitz in literature, the credibility of authors was supported by their personal experience.
Successive generations of readers became accustomed to treating publications with "Auschwitz " in their titles as credible sources of knowledge, and spontaneous trust of their authors.
Thus, the question arises as to whether writing fictional historical novels about Auschwitz is inappropriate? Certainly not. It simply depends on the assumption that the greater the time distance between us and those dramatic events and, consequently, the fewer people who have a direct, emotional connection to that place, the more often and braver it will be possible to use the experience of Auschwitz as an inspiration for literary work. The problem of the publications mentioned above does not lie in the very embedding of the action in the reality of the camp, but in the presentation of the reality in them, and the form given to these books. Their most characteristic feature and, yet the greatest transgression is the creation of a semblance of scientificity and a strong embedding in historical sources, while in fact, they are non-professional, popular books. Therefore, it can be said that these publications are part of the emerging trend of quasi-historical, or rather quasi-camp, literature.
The greatest evidence of the lack of professionalism of the publications discussed is the numerous factual errors contained in them. The authors often supplement the lack of knowledge about the functioning of the camp, its internal organisation and the lives of prisoners and SS men with their personal conjectures, simplifications or prevailing stereotypes, which for a careful reader are bound to create a sense of inconsistency or ambiguity of events. Clearly, one can distinguish several areas in which the literature under discussion has been falsified.
All the books mentioned above present more or less the spatial organisation of the camp and its appearance. This fundamental issue, which is very easily perceptible given the fact that the grounds of the former Auschwitz and Birkenau camps have been preserved in their
original state and the multitude of documents and photographs available at least on the Internet, has been completely neglected in the novels. The authors do not understand the essence of dividing the camp into individual parts and sections; they do not separate its various spaces in their books. The protagonists of their books move almost freely around the entire site; they enter various rooms and workshops, and even move alone between the Auschwitz I main camp and Birkenau situated almost 3 kilometres away from it, which in reality was impossible. In several instances, the authors incorrectly identify the blocks and their purpose. For example, the infamous block 11, whose basement and courtyard was the execution spot of thousands of political prisoners, is mistakenly numbered 10 in the two novels. It is incredibly awkward that the authors do not know the location of the buildings that are crucial to the plot: block 24 (which housed the camp brothel; it was not located on the right side of the courtyard behind the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate. [Kommando Puff, p. 167], but on the left side of the camp street) or the Kindergarten (in the Roma camp), which occupied barracks 29 and 31 rather than 27 and 29 [Auschwitz Lullaby]. The author of the latter book was also mistaken in determining the number of blocks in the so-called Zigeunerlager (the Roma camp, at the BIIe section of Birkenau), even though the annexe to the book contained the correct camp plan with numbers of the barracks.