The Magician of Auschwitz
Prague, 1939. Nazi Germany invade Czechoslovakia. Jewish magician Herbert Levin is deported with his family first to the Terezin ghetto and then to a large camp in Poland.
Leningrad siege, 1943. Portuguese legionnaire Francisco Latino battles with the Spanish Blue Division against the Red Army. He falls for a Russian girl but she is taken by the SS. To save her, he joins the Nazi elite force and is sent to the camp where she is kept in Poland.
Prague, 1939. Nazi Germany invade Czechoslovakia. Jewish magician Herbert Levin is deported with his family first to the Terezin ghetto and then to a large camp in Poland.
Leningrad siege, 1943. Portuguese legionnaire Francisco Latino battles with the Spanish Blue Division against the Red Army. He falls for a Russian girl but she is taken by the SS. To save her, he joins the Nazi elite force and is sent to the camp where she is kept in Poland.
Thus the Portuguese soldier, the Russian girl and the Jewish magician share the same destiny.
Auschwitz.
They must cooperate to survive, but the plot thickens when the death camp prisoners organize a major uprising and the magician is drawn to the heart of it. Can magic save them all?
Based on true events.
“I recently read The Magician of Auschwitz and The Birkenau Scrolls, and, despite having read hundreds of books on this subject, these two stand out. The author, José Rodrigues dos Santos, brings new information unknown to most people about what really happened in the extermination and forced labour camps. He brings to life the harsh conditions of daily life there. These are two heavyweight novels that manage to bring the reader into that living hell on Earth. They are worth every written word.”
“A skillful technician of literary art” (…) “J. R. dos Santos proposes a new vision on the Holocaust.”
“A very beautiful narrative about an episode of the Shoah.” (…) “No character is simple, we are here far from the angelical simplification of a Hollywood movie. There are no monsters, no innocents, but one or the other according to the circumstances: just human beings, caught by their weaknesses and their contradictions.” (…) “Often it reminds us of Roberto Begnini’s wonderful film, Life is Beautiful; this novel carries the same quality of ‘transfiguration’ of reality that allows us to endure it without betraying it. It reminds us also of László Nemes’ Sons of Saul, since this novel, in the same way, does not hesitate in diving into the heart of darkness to expose the extreme cruelty of the concentration camps universe. It reminds us, finally, of Primo Levi.” (…) José Rodrigues dos Santos shows very well how small and fragile is the frontier between white and black magic, myth and mumbo-jumbo, mysticism and superstition, and he reminds us how the Nazi ideology was based on a number of absurd beliefs bordering lunacy.”
Click here for the original critique in French
“A well-researched novel that one easily reads until the very end. An extremely original story written in a troubling and addictive style.”
“In this very good novel, a portrait of the unthinkable, Dos Santos progresses in velvet steps (...) We tremble, we shiver, we get scared, we become horrified when faced with Jewish daily life and the Nazi mysticism behind it. And we can only hope that this novel will get read by hundreds of thousands of readers.”
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March 14, 2023 Review The Magician of Auschwitz Madalena BarataMadalena Barata, vice-president Luso Portuguese Association for Israel Luso Portuguese Association for Israel “It seems fiction has found a new subject: The Holocaust. I, like many people, and even the author... -
March 14, 2023 Review The Magician of Auschwitz Rabbi Shlomo PereiraRabbi Shlomo Pereira, director of Education at the Chabad, USA, and teacher of history, philosophy and canonic law Education at the Chabad, USA “My first worry when I was given... -
September 14, 2020 Interview The Magician of AuschwitzInterview The Magician of Auschwitz for Sábado Portugal, September 2020 How did you develop the idea for this novel and how long did it take for you to write it? I...
