The complete lives of camp people : colonialism, fascism, concentrated modernity

"'The complete lives of camp people' brings together a study of the infamous Dutch colonial camp for political prisoners, Boven Digoel, located in an isolated part of New Guinea, with a consideration of the Nazi work camp Theresienstadt. Through a focus on the minutiae of daily life in these camps, Rudolf Mrázek shows how the world of the twentieth century became the world of the camps. The project isn't comparative, nor is it an attempt to explain the specific structure or nature of these camps; rather, Mrázek focuses on the lives that were lived in Boven Digoel and Theresienstadt, elaborating in detail the events of life that were made modern through the form of a twentieth-century camp. While both were places of unspeakable violence, neither was officially a 'death camp.' In fact, Mrázek argues, not only did life continue in these camps, it became concentrated, reduced, and intensified. Through juxtapositions of interviews with survivors and their descendants, written recollections, archival accounts, ephemera, and media representations, Mrázek is able to provide incredibly detailed accounts of how the banalities of life as we continue to know it--newspapers, haircuts, concert tickets, neighborhoods--were reproduced in the two camps."-- Includes bibliographical references (pages 379-468) and index. 485 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.