Sheila Cohn Dekel

This is one of those books that because of the subject matter you feel a little wrong in not giving it full stars. I have always had an interest in the WW2 and the Nazi's and because of this I have read a number of books on the subject of the holocaust.

I decided to buy Children of the Flames in order to get a little more information as to what really happened in the camps. The blurb promised to deal with the twins of the holocaust and how they were treated, this is something that other books seem to only skirt over and not go into too much detail.

This was the main issue for me. The writer has obviously researched their subject well, but the majority of the book deals with Dr Mengele. The twins stories are told at the beginning of each chapter, focussing firstly on their life before they were taken by the Nazi's. Each twin has a paragraph or so to tell a portion of their tale of that particular part of the story. For me this got quite confusing and even a little repetitive. I would have much preferred each set of twins to have a full chapter dedicated entirely to their journey and experiences.

The experiments that happened at the camps are only barely touched on, I know this may seem a little gruesome but I had hoped for a lot more factual information. What experiments were carried out? What was the result? Etc.

The majority of the book deals with Mengele and his life during and after the war. This is ok if you are not already familiar with him but again, I bought the book for more details of the atrocities committed.

My final gripe is that the last quarter is made up of notes that relate to the preceding text. This meant that they were a little disjointed and I didn't really want to read through them. I would have much preferred these to have been included as footnotes on the actual pages they relate to. This way the text would have been far more enriched.

As I have said, a really well researched book, just not what I was expecting or purchasing it for. It has many 5 * reviews so don't let this put you off. These are just my own thoughts.… (mere)

Not sure what to think of this book. It was definitely interesting but I expected to hear more about the twins and Mengele (see the title) while in Auschwitz. This story was more about Mengele. (He is not a doctor as the authors mentioned in this book, so why call him a doctor in the title I do not understand by the way)
This book was most about Mengele life after the war. It got confusing to me reading about the twins because of the way the book was written.
Every time at least one twins story will be there but then you have to go back to see which twin was this again?)
As someone else said. it is sad and there are so many of these sad stories tons of books could be written about it. We should not forget.
3.5 stars… (mere)