Nein, Nein, Nein!

One Man's Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust

By: Jerry Stahl

Narrated by: Jerry Stahl

Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

A guided group tour to concentration camps in Poland and Germany allows Stahl to confront personal and historical demons with both despair and humor.

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 our entire country—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.

©2022 Jerry Stahl (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Excellent! Sardonic! Human!

Very excellent book I listened to while mostly working alone and slightly depressed. The author and his rendition brings humor to a subject that is purely tragic.

JUST WOW!!

This book was recommended to me by author, Joe Clifford. I absolutely loved it! The emotions I felt were all over the place, from laughter, to tears, to shock, to rage, then back through them all for the entire book.

Yes to Nein!

Stahl tells us it’s illegal in Poland to suggest the Polish people had anything to do with The Holocaust. I didn’t know that. Read his account of a Trump-era pilgrimage to the death camps and you’ll have a chance to consider what set the forces of horror in motion nearly a century ago. And what, in every era, brings people—neighbors, tourists, voters—to these places. It’s a dark story and full of triggers, as it should be.

I was hooked from the very first chapter and this book did not disappoint.

Very well written, from start to finish an excellent listen would recommend without hesitation Bravo!

I’m going to buy it in every published form!

I loved every moment. So much so that I’m going to listen again after I finish this review. It’s funny in places it shouldn’t be which is very helpful with the subject matter. For the record you MUST read “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” regardless if you read this book or not.

Insufferable

Subject matter had me intrigued, but this guy writes like if David Simon’s most self-satisfied tweets and Dennis Miller’s most tortured analogies had a baby. Just pulsating with smugness. Feel like there might be something here if he dialed down the trying too hard like three notches? I gave it a decent shot but I just couldn’t.

Perspective

Author gives a very personal perspective of the Holocaust and the memorials of it. It's an easy to follow narrative with the various personalities on the trip, and the introspection that comes with difficult familial relationships. Stahl packs a lot into this and I'll be thinking about this one for quite a while, and I listened to this during the Gaza Genocide going on. Thought provoking to say the least. Definitely recommend this to all.