The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans

Written by Mark Jacobson

Narrated by Johnny Heller

The journey that takes Mark Jacobson around the world began when a friend bought a lamp at a rummage sale and was told that it was made from the skins of Jews. While he didn't believe the story, he sent it to Mark, saying, "You're a journalist, you figure out what it is."

After three years of research in America, Poland, Germany, and Israel, and with the assistance of forensic experts, DNA analysis, and consultations with Yad Yashem and the historical director at Buchenwald, Jacobson has investigated not only the truth of the thing itself but of the idea of it. He also analyzes our understanding of history; of myths, facts, and evidence; and of the concept of evil.

Despite extensive historical reporting of items made of human skin in eyewitness accounts from Nazi concentration camps, this is the first known discovery and investigation of such an artifact.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781400188819

Mark Jacobson

Mark Jacobson is the author of 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time: A Semi-Dysfunctional Family Circumnavigates the Globe, Teenage Hipster in the Modern World, and the novels Gojiro and Everyone and No One. He has been a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, Esquire, Village Voice and New York Magazine. American Gangster was published by Atlantic in 2007 and has been made into a major motion picture.

Reviews for The Lampshade

[MissX KP · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating topic, and a fun pursuit of the answers. Enjoyed the history aspects and the DNA analysis portions.

[bookwormteri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating and horrifying book to read. After Hurricane Katrina, a man claims to have found a lampshade made of human skin. Mark Jacobson tracks down it's history and much much more.

[picardyrose · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was interesting and well-written, if a little creepy. A lot I didn't know. Not to be insensitive, but I would have thrown the thing away.

[MyFirstName MyLastName · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Please excuse the typos. Voice recognition is poor here but editing is almost impossible due to a glitch in the software . This author is like that person you invite to dinner because you know they're articulate opinionated and highly educated but once the conversation starts everybody stops talking and just listens with. rapt attention. His story is a series of digressions within digressions within digressions but all done so smoothly and with all of them so relevant that you don't even notice. The details sometimes technically wouldn't be relevant if you saw them in an outline or they would just be going too far afield but somehow he ties everything in together and the reader learn so much that you wouldn't find anywhere else. Historical context and background details. I'm totally convinced that the lampshade came from the concentration camps just as it was rumored to do and Elsa Koch the psychopath she was documented as being. Like the author I wanted the lampshade to be authentic because it validated what most people who lived the experience of the Holocaust new to be true but at the same time it also meant that some poor soul lost his or her skin because it was beautiful to Elsa's eyes and they were less than human to her. And yes I think genocide is part of human nature. I think that the struggle to pass on one's DNA and capture all the resources to assure it's continuation just means that even when there are room and resources to go around humans are driven to destroy the competition and capture it all for themselves. But the genocide of the Holocaust was unique in some ways. Just as slavery in America or slavery in general is different and the theft of the homeland of indigenous peoples and their subjugation is also a particular type of crime. The terrible efficiency of the extermination processes and the goal of extermination surrounded by everyday events in society seemingly unconcerned or oblivious to what was going on in their midst. The deliberate blindness of many of them to what was happening right next door and the Monstrous Behavior that was more than extermination but was daily intimate sadism. Having people who were starving to death literally acting as cooks and housekeepers serving food that was lavish and partly wasted so that they suffered even more and experience the terror of being even suspected of stealing a chroma food. And of course many many more evil evil things. All of this comes into the author's musings and education of the reader and yet there is some dry humor and some unusual honesty two. Overall in grossing and satisfying regardless of the ending. I haven't gotten there yet because I've got a few chapters left to go but I already know my rating for the book because it's not based on the outcome.