Waitman Wade Beorn began the work on this book project as a study of a German army motor pool unit, which “had used Jewish labor from a place called Janowska, which I had never heard of” (xi). Janowska, Beorn writes, “played an essential and almost completely unrecognized part in the murder of over five hundred thousand human beings” (263) yet, Beorn contends, “disappeared into the fog of its own small valley in Lviv and into the mists of time” (12). Beorn is correct that Janowska has still not attained the attention it deserves, that “Ukrainian nationalists tend to minimize or avoid altogether both the Holocaust and their own role in it” (12). Discussions of some prominence have taken place, but are not accounted for in this book, partially as a result of the near-total absence of Ukrainian and Polish-language literature, arguably the study’s main shortcoming. Still, the anonymity of a camp were some 80,000 people, mainly Jews, were murdered is striking. As Beorn reminds us, this figure “exceeds the number killed at the Majdanek concentration camp, which is commonly considered part of the canon of extermination” (11).

Following Saul Friedländer’s approach, Beorn seeks to provide “an integrative and integrated history” of the Holocaust (9). He notes how Janowska “stands out in the History of the Holocaust first and foremost for its hybrid nature.” It was “not officially a concentration camp … but served a similar function” (9). Beorn places Janowska “at the center of a web of violence and control and also provided an education in those areas” (190), arguing that “[i]f the Holocaust is a ‘division-of-labor-based crime,’ then understanding these structures become critical at all scales” (191). Relying heavily on German-language sources, Beorn’s study centers mainly on the career paths of German perpetrators, but allows a discussion on the agency of local Ukrainian perpetrators, their background in Selbstschutz or Sonderdienst paramilitary formations or as Trawnikis, remembered as “very trigger-happy” and “always wanting to participate in the shooting of the Jews” (192).

“What does reconstructing the Janowska network tell us about the camp and the Holocaust in Lviv?” (200), Beorn asks. He suggests that “the social (and professional) networks of the Janowska SS men … takes the abstraction of assignments and personnel moves and inextricably links them to individual experience and history” (200). His study, he argues, “provides unique insights into how the Holocaust unfolded on the ground, in the lives of real people” (263).

Beorn chronicles how “Janowska’s sixty acres bore witness to some of the depraved acts of violence and abuse rivaling any in the Nazi portfolio” (165). The harrowing topic places significant responsibilities on the researcher in regard to ethics. Beorn acknowledges that “the following discussion is graphic, difficult, and disturbing. It is undertaken not as a prurient form of historical voyeurism, but because it must be addressed” (166). The peculiar genocidal context, Beorn notes, of “[s]tate-sanctioned mass violence opens the door for conquests of another sort. In the context of genocide, this perversion of basic human dignity becomes even more pervasive,” citing Stephen Katz’ words that “rape is a language” (187). Beorn sets out the humanistic aim to personalize “the generic Holocaust identities of perpetrator, victim, and bystander in the actors connected with the camp” (12). Beorn’s call for a “deeper examination of sexual violence in the Holocaust” (187) raises the question how far the de-anonymization of sexual violence in the camps be taken? Beorn anonymizes the victims of brutal sexual abuse but appears to have drawn a line by those who made what he calls “choiceless choices” (180) of entering intimate relations with perpetrators. So could Beorn, for instance, reveal the identity of a certain “beautiful Jewish prisoner from Vienna” “known to have affairs with SS men,” whose body was later found “in the ravines, naked and dead with her clothing in a pile nearby” (186).

The de-anonymization of Janowska may indeed require personalization, restoring name and identity to voices silenced. “(T)he justice delivered must, in the light of history, be seen as unsatisfactory at best” (234), Beorn notes, as “[o]nly a few of the Janowska or Lviv perpetrators were judged” (243), reflecting a reluctance to address this violence (248).

Beorn notes how “ghosts are indeed present in Lviv” (259), and that “[m]uch memorial work remains to be done around the former camp as well as in Lviv itself” (261) where Janowska “remained physically visible but still mostly hidden” (259). Beorn’s book is a significant step towards change; his well-researched and judicious work not only gives voice to those silenced; it places Janowska more firmly on the map of the Holocaust. It is a substantial contribution to the literature.