Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Nein, Nein, Nein!
Nein, Nein, Nein!: One Man's Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust | Jerry Stahl
3 posts | 2 read | 3 to read
A guided group tour to concentration camps in Poland and Germany allows Stahl to confront personal and historical demons with both deep despair and savage humor "Nein, Nein, Nein! is the unbelievable true story of a guided bus tour to Nazi concentration camps, told as only Jerry Stahl can tell it, with an acid wit as deadly serious as it is hilarious, insane, and weirdly life-affirming. The destinations he describes are real, but who else would dare to take us there? Stahl is fearless, gripping, and most unsparing about his own damned soul. I read everything he writes." —Eric Bogosian, actor/playwright "There’s dark humor, and then there is Nein, Nein, Nein! Jerry Stahl manages a balancing act here that would put all the trapeze artists of the world to shame." —Lucy Sante, author of Low Life "A disturbing, funny, dark travelogue." —Marc Maron In September 2016, Jerry Stahl was feeling nervous on the eve of a two-week trip across Poland and Germany. But it was not just the stops at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau that gave him anxiety. It was the fact that he would be traveling with two dozen strangers, by bus. In a tour group. And he was not a tour-group kind of guy. The decision to visit Holocaust-world did not come easy. Stahl’s lifelong depression at an all-time high, his career and personal life at an all-time low, he had the idea to go on a trip where the despair he was feeling—out-of- control sadness, regret, and fear, not just for himself, but for the entire United States—would be appropriate. And where was despair more appropriate than the land of the Six Million? Seamlessly weaving global and personal history, through the lens of Stahl’s own bent perspective, Nein, Nein, Nein! stands out as a triumph of strange-o reporting, a tale that takes us from gang polkas to tour-rash to the truly disturbing snack bar at Auschwitz. Strap in for a raw, surreal, and redemptively hilarious trip. Get on the bus.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
JoeMo
post image
Pickpick

This is a nonfiction memoir about a man‘s participation in a group tour to see the concentration camps in Poland and Germany. He over shares with the reader to include his train wreck of a personal life, the happenings between the various group members, and his political views, which mostly involve comparing the Trump administration to the Nazis. It took me some time to get used to the book, but it grew on me.

JoeMo Stahl did well in describing how the camps have become tourist traps complete with never-ending lines and snack bars and cafés. The commercialization is disturbing, but the author still had a deeply poignant and meaningful experience. A similar trip has been on my bucket list for around fifteen years. It remains on my list after having read this, despite now being aware of some of the annoyances I would face. (edited) 2y
PageShifter Sounds interesting! I have also planned to see them one day but I didn't know they have become tourist traps! (edited) 2y
TheAromaofBooks Great progress!!! 2y
28 likes4 comments
review
ReadingOver50
post image
Pickpick

An interesting, nonfiction memoir about one man's bus tour of Holocaust sites in Europe. Although this is not a funny topic, there are funny parts in the book. And sad parts, as he stands in the concentration camps where so many people were killed. The description of the visiting crowds waiting to enter the camps as if they were going to Disneyland. That part seems shameful, but I understand that they don't want anyone to forget what happened.

75 likes3 stack adds
blurb
ReadingOver50
post image

Currently reading. Thank you to LibraryThing and Akashic books for the free copy.