We are not far into the first chapter when we learn the source of this book's title: "My innocent absence from the tangled pyramids of naked men women and children mixed with urine shit blood and vomit in the midst of grisly screams choking gasps invocations to God and a string quartet the children crushed underfoot in the scramble for air... " It is the string quartet in this (uncharacteristically unpunctuated) passage that places it in a concentration camp from which the author, aged...