The Complete Lives of Camp People: Colonialism, Fascism, Concentrated Modernity

In The Complete Lives of Camp People Rudolf Mrázek presents a sweeping study of the material and cultural lives of twentieth-century concentration camp internees and the multiple ways in which their experiences speak to the fundamental logics of modernity. Mrázek focuses on the minutiae of daily life in two camps: Theresienstadt, a Nazi "ghetto" for Jews near Prague, and the Dutch "isolation camp" Boven Digoel-which was located in a remote part of New Guinea between 1927 and 1943 and held Indonesian rebels who attempted to overthrow the colonial government. Drawing on a mix of interviews with survivors and their descendants, archival accounts, ephemera, and media representations, Mrázek shows how modern life's most mundane tasks-buying clothes, getting haircuts, playing sports-continued on in the camps, which were themselves designed, built, and managed in accordance with modernity's tenets. In this way, Mrázek demonstrates that concentration camps are not exceptional spaces; they are the locus of modernity in its most distilled form.

Author: Rudolf Mrázek
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 01/17/2020
Pages: 496
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.50lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 1.30d
ISBN13: 9781478006671
ISBN10: 1478006676
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia | Southeast Asia
- Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social
- Social Science | Penology

About the Author
Rudolf Mrázek is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the author of several books, including A Certain Age: Colonial Jakarta through the Memories of its Intellectuals, also published by Duke University Press.