Along the Roads to Hell

A powerful intergenerational memoir, Michael Admiraal and his father—born in the 1920s—drive 2,300 miles across modern-day Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, and France to visit eight Nazi concentration camps. What they discover are not only the remnants of history’s darkest chapter, but two profoundly different ways of remembering it. A father and son. Eight dark pages of history. One unforgettable journey. In this powerful intergenerational memoir, Michael Admiraal and his father—born in the 1920s—drive 2,300 miles across modern-day Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, and France to visit eight Nazi concentration camps. What they discover are not only the remnants of history’s darkest chapter, but two profoundly different ways of remembering it. The father seeking to understand atrocities once distant from his own experience; the son hoping to uncover the untold story behind the silences of his childhood. Part travelogue, part historical guide, and part family reflection, Along the Roads to Hell explores what it means to bear witness as outsiders—those who were not victims, but who feel a duty to remember. Through maps, photographs, and vivid on-site impressions, Admiraal invites readers to confront the Holocaust not through abstraction, but by standing where it actually happened. Only by walking these roads, he argues, can we truly understand the scale of its harrowing legacy—and why we must never forget.