The only redeeming quality of this graphic novel is the bonus material at the end: interviews with Croci that reveal what he was trying to do, even though he didn't accomplish any of it well. This is by far the least effective and most poorly written piece of work on the subject that I have yet encountered.

I did get to see an aspect of camp life from a new angle, though: Croci graphically depicts the gas chamber from within, minutes after the last victim's breath, and casually shows the job that some inmates had of opening up and cleaning out. Unfortunately, the characters appear to have no emotional reaction to this, which I doubt was the case, but that was how the whole novel was--you don't care about the characters, and they don't seem to have any realistic emotional response to anything either. Auschwitz is most useful as artwork for people interested in the grotesque than anything else, which is not at all what he was going for. ( )

Great art, but the story is disjointed. The connection to 1993 Yugoslavia is not explained, and seems forced. Even the notes don't have much of an explanation. It would have been better for the author to string together a narrative from the incidents and anecdotes he gathered in his interviews of survivors, rather than add an extraneous connection to a more recent event he admits happened to none of his interview subjects. But, the art is stunning and effectively creates a horrifying tableau. ( )

After reading the excellent Maus and tackling the subject of Holocaust remembrance and memorials, I bought this graphic novel too. Besides their subject, the comparison with Maus doesn't seem fair. Croci's Auschwitz aim to confront us with the artwork, whereas Spiegelman's Maus did this with the narrative. For people interested in the way later generations deal with the holocaust and how we picture this (like history students etc), this is very interesting. I dind't quite care for the narrative, but the artwork is great, horrific and confronting. ( )

Heartbreaking. The very graphic illustrations of the atrocities the Germans committed against the Jews compel the reader not to tuck the Holocaust away in his/her mind as a historical source of discomfort. The author serves the purpose of reminding us of the horrific events that were foisted upon innocent people by the twisted ideas of one man with a charismatic gift to bring an entire country to see the "wisdom" of his actions.

We should not forget, because genocide is still taking place in the world even now. ( )

I had big hopes for this book and hoped it would be similar to Maus. I was very disappointed. This book is very hard to follow due to all the characters looking similar and the fact that it wasn't written very well. Half the pages in the book is an interview with the author so he can try to explain what was going on in the book. Big disappointment. ( )