Ainsley
McGovern
Mr.
McCaslin
History
7
May 19
201.5
Unforgotten
Book
Report
Like many others
for
this book report,
I read
the magnificent
memoir of
Franz
Thaler's
experience
in
a
German
concentration
camp
entitled
Unforgotten.
This
nonfiction memoir
was
ultimately
heartbreaking
and gut
wrenching; Thaler
recalls his
life in
Dachau
and
his struggle
for
survival.
As
I
mentioned
before,
this
book
is
a
memoir
and
is
written
by
Franz
Thaler,
a
Holocaust
survivor.
In this
book
Thaler
speaks
and shares about his
tough times in the concentration
camp,
his
inspiration
to
keep
surviving,
and his
realization
of
how precious
life
really
is.
A
huge
part
of
this book
is
telling
Thaler's
fight for
survival in the
German
camp.
He
is sent
there
at
an
early
age
of eighteen.
When
Franz
Thaler
is sent
to
Dachau he
does
not
know
where
he
is going.
He
knows
he
is
in
trouble but
he is
unaware
of
what
bad fate
he has
coming for
him:
"He spoke
to
me
in
such
insistent
and
unctuous way
that
I almost
looked
forward
to the
following
day" (Thaler
57).
In
this
segment
from
the
book,
he has
no
idea
what
was going
to
happen
the next
day.
In
this,
he is
talking to
a
guard
and
the next
day we
would
be
traveling
to
Dachau.
When
he
got
to
Dachau,
it
was
a
completely
different
life
for
him,
he
barely
got
any
food
and wäs
treated
as
if
he
was
an
animal
that
has
just
come
into
a
pound.
That
is
how
I
see
this,
the
SS
men acted
as
if
the
Jews
and prisonerS
were
dogs.
They
were starved
and
worked to
the bone. Most
punishments were
deathly,
but
surprisingly
when Thaler
had
scabies
and got
frostbite
on his toes
from
not having
shoes,
there were doctors
he
was
taken to: "Finally
I
could not
bear
it
anymore,
physically
and
mentally.
I asked
my
senior inmate to
have me
seen
by
a
doctor"
fThaler
89J.
He
was
first
placed
in
Dachau,
then
he moved
to
a
smaller
place called
Hersbruck
rvhere
they took
much
better
care
of him,
then
he
was
sent
back
to
Dachau.
As
I
mentioned previously, Thaler
had
a
lot
of
inspirations
in
his
fight
for
sun
ival.
Thaler
was
not in
the
concentration
camp
because he
was
f
ewish,
it
was
