The Smell of Smoke

The deportees into Nazi extermination camps charge the Shoà as the unutterable experience of the twentieth century that remains unsurpassed. They serve as witnesses of an event that, more than any other event, cannot be explained or rationalized. With this book, the author ponders upon this subject, addressing in particular those who were born in the world “after Auschwitz.” The author, through his analysis of the spatial-temporal, symbolic and physical structure of the lager pieces together the specific pedagogy of annihilation, which was an original Nazi creation. He introduces the lager as a pedagogical device that, in addition to destroying individuals, placed them in a condition of self-destruction. Searching for traces of that expropriation and liquidation device within modern societies, the author finds opportunities of resistance and opposition by individual subjects.