"Zone of Interest" seems to be a Nazi term referring to death camps in general or perhaps specifically to Auschwitz.
The various characters present different lives within the camp as well as different views and reactions to both the Nazis and the camp itself. There are hardcore Nazis, SS officers who support the war but see the Jewish death camps as pointless and unnecessary, there is an SS officer who works behind the scenes to slow and sabotage the Nazi war effort, there is the wife and family of the head of Auschwitz who also live at the camp, there is a Sonderkomando prisoner also.
It is a fairly heavy book, though not as much as you might expect. The focus is not on the details of the exterminations and living conditions, but on the lives and minds of the people surrounding the camps.
There is also an exploration of the Nazi idealism - views on women, patriarchy, sexuality (male) - and some hints of the crazy ideas they came up with such as a extraterrestrial origin of Aryans. Amis captures the strangeness, the craziness and the essential incomprehensibility of the whole period.
There is an excellent bibliography in the back of the book:
To Find:
- Primo Levi's books about his time in Auschwitz, If this is a Man & The Truce
- Explaining Hitler; Ron Rosenbaum
- Defying Hitler & The Meaning of Hitler, both by Sebastian Haffner
- The Journey Back from Hell, Anton Gill ( survivor accounts)
- book on Hitler by Alan Bullock
- Doctor 117641, Louis Micheels
- I Shall Bear Witness. Victor Klemperer
- Diary of a Man in Despair, Friedrick Reck
- (others there to pull out too)
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