Tag: the Holocaust

fiction

Book Review: House on Endless Waters by Emuna Elon

Stephanie1 Comment

I don’t read a lot of literary fiction. I learned fairly early on in my adult life that I don’t necessarily connect with the characters well, and in general, the genre is a little too slow-paced for my tastes. But someone from a Jewish books group on Facebook recommended House on Endless Waters by Emuna Elon (Atria Books, 2020), and it sounded fascinating. I’ve also had good experiences with some Jewish literary fiction, so I decided to give this one a try – and it fit a category for the 2023 Popsugar Reading Challenge of a historical fiction book. Double win!

On a reluctant visit to his birthplace of Amsterdam, Israeli author Yoel Blum discovers familiar faces in a video at the local Jewish museum: his mother, his sister, and…a baby who isn’t him. A return trip to Amsterdam, this time without his wife but with a plan to stay much longer, sets him on the path to figuring out the mystery of that video so he can both understand and also base his next novel on it.

The story of Yoel’s past unfolds slowly, the story running parallel to his own, occasionally in the same paragraph (which sounds like it would be confusing, but it’s really not. It works well, in a way I found surprising for me, since literary fiction usually isn’t my jam). The struggle of his parents to adapt to the quickly changing situation in both Europe as a whole and Amsterdam, where everything was supposed to be safe; the increasing dangers; the food shortages; the disappearance of his father; the arguments with friends and neighbors; the disappearances of so many people around them, all terrifying and horrible. Yoel’s knowledge increases bit by bit as he gets to know the city of his birth, and he develops a new understanding of not only his childhood, but his relationship with his mother, his wife, and even his grandchildren as the truth of his path unfolds. 

This worked really, really well for me. It’s not entirely clear as to what parts of the 1940’s-narrative are fiction and what are based on what Yoel is learning about his past, but the story comes together almost seamlessly, blending expertly with Yoel’s present fact-finding discovery trip. It’s tense, to be sure, and there’s a mystery that isn’t too difficult to figure out, but it’s emotional and devastating all the same. Yoel’s growth as a writer, a husband, a parent, and grandparent is gentle over the course of the novel, culminating in some tender scenes at the end of the book, leaving me wishing I could stick around and see more of not only how his life changes upon his return to Israel, but how this new book of his is received by his fans.

I’m really glad I took the chance on this book. I’ve gotten such great suggestions from my Jewish book group, and this was no exception. 

Follow Emuna Elon on Twitter here.

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memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind by Julie Metz

Stephanie2 Comments

The Holocaust is such a complicated subject, and it’s no wonder that so many children of survivors go on to write their own memoirs, because that kind of trauma is something that’s passed on, that reaches forward through the generations. I’ve read quite a few of these memoirs so far, and I’m sure I’ll read more, but my feeling of responsibility to read them all is how Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind by Julie Metz (Atria Books, 2021) ended up on my TBR. 

Julie Metz’s mother, Eve, rarely talked about her childhood experiences in Vienna during World War II, and Julie never felt as though she could ask. When her mother died, discoveries among her possessions led Julie to begin searching for the past her mother kept buried away, and this search would take her across countries and continents.

From Vienna to Italy, emailing, calling, and video chatting with people across the US, Europe, and Israel, Ms. Metz began piecing together the story of her mother’s life: daughter of a successful businessman whose survival came thanks to the necessity of the products his factory created and coincidentally, due to his love of hiking; sister to two brothers sent away to England early on, before things got too complicated in Vienna. She tracks the changes that came to Vienna and to her mother’s family and friends, the struggles they had in day-to-day life, the difficulties surviving (and despite those difficulties, how they were shielded from the worst of the suffering), and their escape to America via a trip through Italy, and the ship that brought them across the ocean.

Ms. Metz’s search is one of obvious dedication, and I’m sure it was emotional to visit all the places her mother lived and that were stolen from her and her family. I did feel like from time to time, the book dragged a little, but the overarching goal of the author and the tense journey of her family members out of war-torn Europe kept me turning pages. It’s a story that illustrates that even survival leaves scars and pain that echo through the generations. 

Visit Julie Metz’s website here.

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story by Irene Butter

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I know I’ve said before I feel a huge responsibility to read Holocaust memoirs, because those stories deserve to be heard. I do need to ration them out, though. They’re painful to read, because so many people collectively lost their humanity, and others temporarily stashed theirs away in order to survive (sometimes understandable), and the death and damage and trauma can be a lot (hat tip to Holocaust scholars; I truly admire their strength and their ability to engage with this material on a daily basis. I wish our local Holocaust museum were just a little closer; I’d absolutely sign up to volunteer there if it were). This is how Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story by Irene Butter (White River Press, 2018) ended up on my TBR, and interlibrary loan brought it into my life.

Irene Butter, known as Reni throughout the book, was born in Germany, to her parents, Mutti and Pappi, with an older brother, Werner. The family moved to Amsterdam due to the growing threat of the Nazis, sharing a neighborhood with Anne Frank (Reni knew her, but they weren’t close), but leaving her grandparents, who hadn’t received permission to move, behind. And of course, eventually, the Nazis invaded Holland as well, and like so many others, Reni’s family was rounded up.

The family was first sent to Westerbork, and then on to Bergen-Belsen. Through miracle after miracle, the family manages to stay together. Mutti and Pappi are forced to do hard labor; everyone starves; death is all around them, as is suffering in so many forms. A plan that Pappi put in place before their internment comes to fruition, though it doesn’t have all of the outcome they’d hoped for. Through it all, Irene holds it together, remains stronger than any child should ever have to be, and goes on to build a beautiful life for herself.

The story of Irene Butter’s life is one of joy, suffering, tragedy, beauty, horror, and survival. Her relationship with her brother is a deep point of joy in this book; the two always look out for and car for each other, with a healthy dose of sibling teasing thrown in for good measure. Her parents are strong and thoughtful, desperate to keep their family together and safe through it all. The book covers the time from Irene’s birth through her time in Camp Jeanne d’Arc in Algeria, a displaced persons camp; it tells a little of her life afterwards – returning to high school, attending college, marrying, having children, and eventually becoming a sought-after speaker on the Holocaust, among other accomplishments. I do wish it would’ve gone into a little more detail about her life in America post-arrival. What must it have been like to return to school, to sit at a desk surrounded by students your age who had zero idea the nightmare you’d survived? How old she must’ve felt looking around at everyone around her. My heart goes out to all that Mrs. Butter suffered, and the young child she was, and the carefree teenager she should have been but wasn’t allowed to be. She’s managed to live a remarkable life, and living well truly is the best revenge. It doesn’t make up for so much loss, of course, but every bit helps.

I hadn’t realized it until the end, but Mrs. Butter had written this book with John. D. Bidwell and Kris Holloway. Ms. Holloway wrote and Mr. Bidwell is the contributing editor of Monique and the Mango Rains, the memoir of Kris Holloway’s time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali and her friendship with the dynamic midwife Monique. I absolutely loved this book and think of it often, so it was a delight to read the bios at the back and realize they were a part of bringing this book to life.

Visit Irene Butter’s website here.

nonfiction

Book Review: Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books by Mark Glickman

Stephanie1 Comment

I can’t actually remember how Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books by Mark Glickman (The Jewish Publication Society, 2015) ended up on my TBR; likely a mention by one of the many Jewish pages I follow on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Books and reading have always been an important part of being Jewish (we are the People of the Book!), and so learning about and understanding what happened to Jewish books during and after World War II was something that piqued my interest. Boy, did I learn a LOT from this book!

So, almost everyone knows that the Nazi burned books. Most of us have seen pictures of people throwing books onto a huge bonfire, and we use Nazi book burning as a metaphor for the dangers of censorship. But most of us probably don’t know that their book burning phase didn’t last very long; they quickly moved on to collecting books. That’s right. The Nazis stole, then collected Jewish writings even as they mowed down the Jewish people during World War II. They planned to study the writings of the culture they had wiped out. Fortunately, they lost, and afterwards, one of the many questions to be answered at war’s end became, “Now what do we do with all these millions of books?”

In order to help the reader understand the importance of this question, Rabbi Mark Glickman begins the book with a fascinating look at the history of Jewish texts and the emphasis on reading and study that has always been central to Judaism. The second section segues into the many heartbreaking ways the Nazis stole and desecrated our texts; the third, how so many people worked for years to return said texts to their rightful owners, or, barring the ability to do that, to send the texts to the places they would again be loved and cherished. This was obviously a massive amount of work; millions upon millions of books and papers had been stolen and hidden away, or stored in places that ranged from caves to castles. Moving these books involved multiple organizations working tirelessly for years.

This is an incredible book that tells a story I hadn’t heard before. I had no idea about the Nazis stealing books; even with all the reading I’ve done about history, World War II, and the Shoah, I had been under the impression that they burned books and nothing else. I had no clue about the massive troves of Jewish literature that lay hidden after the war, nor of the incredible effort of so many people to return these books to communities and organizations that would recognize them for the treasures that they are. This book presented a brand-new understanding of history to me, and I’m grateful to Rabbi Glickman for having penned such an interested, eye-opening work. I always appreciate being able to be better informed about anything, but especially Judaism and Jewish history.

nonfiction

Book Review: Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower

Stephanie3 Comments

My second book lately by Wendy Lower (the first being The Ravine). She’s an amazing researcher and fabulous writer, but her books are heavy, so beware. I added Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (Chatto Windus, 2013) as soon as I learned about it, but it took me a bit to get to it, due to life business and waiting to be in the right mental space. It does share a lot in common with James Wyllie’s Nazi Wives, so if you’re looking to learn more about that aspect of World War II and Holocaust history, both these books should be on your reading list.

When we learn about the history of Germany in the 1940’s, the names in the books read like a long parade of men. It’s men who did the killing, who perpetrated all the harm, who were responsible for the mass death and suffering. But is that true? Using well-honed research skills, interviews, and original source documents, Wendy Lower says no. Not only were many, many German women supportive of the mission, especially on the Eastern front, more than a few of them participated in the murders and created suffering and pain for many others.

Many were there to support their husbands; others signed up to be stationed on the eastern front out of a sense of adventure. For whatever reason they came to be part of the Nazi killing machine, plenty of women supported Hitler’s ideals and bought into the antisemitism and hatred that was par for the course at the time. And far be it from learning anything; these attitudes followed many of these women – few of whom were prosecuted for their actions – long after the war ended.

Not an easy read. The women Lower portrays are the furthest from ‘sugar, spice, and all things nice’ as one can possibly be. These women are hateful and murderous, finding the death of human beings funny and entertaining. They delight in the suffering they cause, only to deny and weep when brought to trial. While women were often looked at as weaker and unable to perpetrate such horrors, Ms. Lower shows that this was absolutely not the case. Women were just as disgustingly brutal, and in some cases more so, than the men.

Rough book, but an important one.

nonfiction

Book Review: The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower

Stephanie1 Comment

It was a combing through of my library’s catalog (the old person impulse to still refer to it as a ‘card catalog’! I have a scar on my hand from dropping and thus trying to catch the H drawer of my library’s card catalog when I was 12. I think of it as a super cool natural bookworm tattoo…) to look for Jewish books that I learned about the existence of The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower (Mariner Books, 2021). I knew I had to read it – I feel a big responsibility to read everything I can handle about the Holocaust, but I had to wait until I had the mental space for it. And in trying to read all the ebooks that have been sitting on my list for a bit, this book came up…and it was finally in.

The Ravine covers a photograph that captures murder in progress. The photograph, shown in detail several times throughout the book, shows a woman in the process of being shot and falling into a deep ravine, a small child at her side and an even smaller child tucked in to her lap. Several men stand behind her, one who is doing the shooting. A cloud of gunsmoke hangs in the air.

Wendy Lower, scholar and researcher, worked diligently over a long period of time to identify not only the people in the photo, but also the photographer who took it. The Ravine documents this arduous process, which takes her across countries, deep into archives and down village streets around the world. Phone calls, documents, interviews, research into cameras; Ms. Lower used all the skills she had, along with the skills of other people, to help flesh out the story of this horrifying moment captured for posterity.

Not an easy book to read. The book gets into some truly gutting details about the horrors of the Holocaust, and there were a few times I struggled to continue reading. It’s also a research-heavy book, written in a fairly academic style, so this isn’t something the casual reader is likely to pick up for a relaxing weekend read.

It does tell a story of how intense historical research can be, and the lengths and depths researchers need to go to in order to ensure that their work is correct. The Holocaust isn’t over; its effects are still felt in the remaining survivors and in the family members who were affected by what their loved ones suffered. This is evident in some of the interviews Ms. Lower conducts; the subjects break down and struggle to answer her questions. This is still a raw subject for them, and this book does a good job showing how the pain hasn’t ended.

The Ravine is a heavy, heavy book, but a worthy read.

fiction · historical fiction · YA

Book Review: They Went Left by Monica Hesse

Stephanie2 Comments

When I was in my early 20s, I picked up a copy of After the War by Carol Matas, about a group of Jewish teenagers and children making their way to Palestine after surviving the Holocaust (this is an excellent book; I highly recommend it). Upon reading this, I realized that most books about the Holocaust focus on the horrors of the concentration/death camps; they mostly end when the camp is liberated, and few books talk about what happened next. What happened to those people who lost everything, who witnessed unspeakable nightmares every day for years? How did they move on with their lives? Could they even move on? This period of history, post-WWII for the survivors, has intrigued me ever since, and that was how They Went Left by Monica Hesse (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2021) ended up on my list. I was glad to learn of its existence.

18 year-old Zofia Lederman has survived- survived the war, survived the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, and survived most of her family. Separated upon arrival at the camp, she was sent to the right; the rest of her family went left. But Zofia is broken; her body has been ravaged by starvation and brutal workloads, and her mind has fractured as a result. She can no longer remember the last time she saw her younger brother Abek, and so she leaves the hospital early and begins to search for him, her only remaining family member.

Her search leads her across multiple countries, to orphanages and displaced persons camps, where people are struggling to rebuild shattered lives, some with more success than others. Zofia marvels at the ones who have picked up and moved on so easily; how is it that they are able to keep living, when she’s barely hanging on? After a while, it seems Zofia is one of the lucky ones…or is she? With the help of her new friends and the lessons she learns from them, Zofia is able to find a future in the unexpected, even if it does mean heartbreak and coming to terms with everything’s she- and everyone else- has lost.

This is a powerful book. Monica Hesse cuts no corners in painting pictures of the brutality suffered during this period of time. Mass graves, murdered babies, horrific medical experiments, survivors committing suicide after Liberation, sexual favors exchanged for survival or better work details, she leaves nothing out. This is not a light and easy novel; this is an in-your-face exposé of all the ways Jews were tortured and reaped of their dignity and their lives throughout the Holocaust. There is suffering and pain on every page, and it’s all thoroughly researched and well-woven into this story.

I appreciated that Zofia wasn’t just another strong character. She’s deeply broken at the beginning of the story, losing time and lapsing into what she’s not sure are memories or just wishful fantasies. The search for her brother is a nightmare in and of itself; we’re so spoiled today with the internet and cell phones, with such instant communication. All families had back then were unreliable phones, letters (likely with a slow, unreliable post at the time), and placing names on lists of organizations (none of whom communicated with one another). Imagine trying to find one person out of millions in that manner, when millions of your people had been slaughtered. The desperation of this method of searching is highlighted throughout this book, and the whole thing just broke my heart.

I’m not sure any book about the Holocaust can truly have a happy ending- even the few whole families who managed to survive still lost homes, friends, communities, their entire way of life. The best, most powerful books end with resolve, and that’s what They Went Left offers: the digging deep and reaching out to find what one needs to keep living. Monica Hesse has created a novel that offers exactly that.

Visit Monica Hesse’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

graphic memoir

Book Review: Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir by Amy Kurzweil

Stephanie5 Comments

I need to read more graphic novels. I always, always forget how fun the format is, how relaxing it is take in the art as I page through the story- even when the story isn’t necessarily an easy one. Currently, our teen graphic novels are squished in with the manga, which makes them kind of difficult to find amidst all the brightly colored series books, and the adult graphic novels are tucked away in a far corner of the library that I’m never by, so I don’t always remember to go looking for them. I’m really hoping that they have a more prominent place when our new library building opens up late next year (I get so excited driving past the building site on Main Street and seeing the progress they’re making. It’s slow- they started tearing down the old abandoned grocery store that formerly sat in that site late this past spring, and it’s now just an empty lot with heaps of broken concrete, and the start of a small basement, but it’s definitely progress!) All that to say, I had a bit of a hard time locating Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir by Amy Kurzweil (Black Balloon Publishing, 2016) during my last trip, but I’m glad I finally found it squished in there on the bottom shelf.

Growing up the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor isn’t easy for Amy. Her mother, a psychologist, overanalyzes everything; her grandmother has never really shared what she went through, but Amy, a budding artist, wants to learn her family’s stories. What happened to Bubbe? What does it all mean for their family, for Amy, for their future? Sliding around in time and incorporating the stories of all three women- grandmother, mother, daughter- Amy writes and illustrates the story of her grandmother’s survival in Poland, all that she lost, and all that she carries with her to this day. By doing so, Amy explores the trauma all three generations have suffered because of it.

Graphic memoir is such an interesting format for such a heavy topic. It’s still an intense subject, and Bubbe’s experiences fleeing, hiding, and losing almost her entire family absolutely reach in and rip out the reader’s soul. But the format tempers it slightly in a way that plain print doesn’t- it doesn’t lessen the emotional impact at all, but the illustrations wrap a fuzzy blanket of comfort around your shoulders as you digest the tragedy. Ms. Kurzweil represents her grandmother’s pain well, but her drawings, frame by frame, help soothe the ache and make the long-term effects of the tragedy easier to understand.

While this is definitely an emotional subject, Flying Couch is still a fast read (just take the time to appreciate all Ms. Kurzweil’s fabulous artwork!). I flew through it Sunday morning and it’s given me an even deeper understanding of the toll of generational trauma, and the importance of sharing our stories.

Visit Amy Kurzweil’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn

Stephanie2 Comments

A good title draws a reader in immediately. A provocative title makes the whole world sit up and take notice. And it was a provocative title that had me clicking the want-to-read button on Goodreads last week immediately, without even needing to learn more about the rest of the book. I’ve heard of Dara Horn before, but hadn’t read any of her writing before this. But when someone in one of my Facebook groups mentioned her latest book, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (W.W. Norton Company, 2021), I knew it would have to go on my list. Because that title…it’s true, isn’t it?

Dara Horn is a writer, professor, and scholar, often known for her essays on Judaism and Jewish-themed topics. But she came to the realization that she was always asked to write about dead Jews, never living ones. And this became the topic for her latest book: the world has a fascination with dead Jews, but rarely affords the same respect to living Jews. How many Holocaust novels are out there, often with a happy ending, often with a Gentile rescuer as the main character? How often do you think those happy endings happened in real life? How much do you know about the trauma suffered by survivors, the anger, the refusal of governments to help those who had lost everything, the many survivors who were murdered after leaving the camps? How many Jewish heritage sites exist around the world with no mention as to why there are no Jews living at those sites anymore? Why is The Merchant of Venice still one of Shakespeare’s most-performed plays, despite its blatant antiseminism (and what do you think that says to the Jews in your life)?

Our country’s education does a lot of things right, but it fails to instruct our students on so much of world history, and even when it does, it misses the mark in a big, big way. (Props to my daughter’s class, which is currently looking at various cultures around the world, and including a glimpse into both the history and the religions of those areas.) So many students are only exposed to the existence of Jews when they’re mass-murdered (as often happened throughout history, and continues to happen today), and they learn only what Hitler thought and taught about them- not what Jews actually are, what Jews actually do, what Jews have contributed to the many, many societies that have been home throughout the centuries. And that leads to people only appreciating and sometimes fetishizing dead Jews, and not appreciating live ones.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen, in one of my online book groups, someone mentioning that Holocaust fiction is a favorite genre. (I think I actually recoiled from the computer at the last post I saw. Their post and tone were so…cheery.) Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying books about the Holocaust shouldn’t be written. They should. The Shoah was a devastation that shouldn’t ever be forgotten, and writers should engage with it in order to demonstrate again and again, the horror of it all, and why such devastation and the attitudes that lead to it should be cut off before they begin. BUT. There’s definitely a trend of Holocaust rescuer books, of happy ending stories, of Nazi-guard-with-a-conscience stories. And those just aren’t reality. And we need to ask ourselves why we need those stories so badly as a society. What are we trying to convince ourselves of here? Whose stories are we leaving out when we pile on the ones with a lovely rainbow arc of redemption?

This is not an easy book to read- not for me, as a Jew; hopefully it won’t be for you, either- it’s not meant to be. It’s meant for people to take a hard look at why our world sets up Holocaust museums (which are absolutely necessary) but won’t deal with the growing wave of antisemitism spreading wider and wider. Why we’re so eager to blame Jews for their own demise, as Ms. Horn points out after yet another antisemitic murder; why newspaper articles on other murder victims don’t talk about the murderer’s frustration with Jews who had moved into the area (where the murderer didn’t even live. Imagine an article that said something like, “Understandably, Steve’s frustration only grew when his neighbor didn’t put away the dinner dishes away in her own house as quickly as he thought she should do. After a series of social media posts where he documented his unhappiness, police weren’t surprised to find her murdered body on the front lawn the next morning.” People would rage! But the article Ms. Horn quotes from, about murders at a kosher supermarket, isn’t much different).

People Love Dead Jews is a tough, thought-provoking read that is beautifully well-written (I wish I had half of Dara Horn’s brainpower). If you’ve ever looked forward to the release of a favorite author’s upcoming novel set during the Holocaust, or if this mass tragedy is the only Jewish history you’ve ever learned about, this is probably the book you need to read. (A good companion read would be Antisemitism: Here and Now by Deborah E. Lipstadt.)

Visit Dara Horn’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam

Stephanie1 Comment

I will never understand the Holocaust. I don’t know that anyone will. Because there’s no good answer to all the many, many whys and hows of it. Why would anyone do that? How could anyone act with such cruelty? I don’t know. I don’t know how the perpetrators never once took a hard look at what they were doing and went, “Wait a minute…” But I keep trying, because these stories need to be told and read and shared, and that’s how 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam (Citadel Press, 2019) ended up on my TBR. I heard so much about this a year or two ago, and it was just now that I had the mental space for it. It was worth the wait.

In 1942, 999 young unmarried women in Slovakia, including a lot of teenagers, were rounded up and shipped off, away from their homes and friends and family, under the guise of three months of forced government work. They were the first group to whom this happened. Instead of working in a shoe factory, as they expected, they were taken to Auschwitz, where their nightmare began. Working outside in the worst of weather with no shoes (or wooden sandals at best) and only a thin dress to cover their emaciated bodies. Starvation. Shaved heads that blistered in the sun. Barely adequate water, if they were lucky. Typhus. Injuries that went untreated. Being made to stand naked outdoors for hours in all kinds of weather in order to be counted. The threat of death, yours or someone you loved, at every possible moment. There was no end to the nightmares suffered by the young women imprisoned there, and Ms. Macadam doesn’t shy away from the details.

This is a heavy book, filled with the stories and memories of the few who survived, and the stories and blessed memories of those who did not. The survivors’ pain is evident in what they choose to share. Ms. Macadam points out several times things that are not common knowledge and that most survivors don’t share, due to shame or embarrassment, even all these years later. They still cry as they share what they went through, and when they share stories about their families who were torn from them and murdered solely for being Jewish. It’s a heartbreaking book, one that I had to set down a few times and take a lot of deep breaths before I could continue reading, so great is the pain on each page.

It’s hard to write about these books that are so emotionally difficult to read, in a way that will convince people to read them as well. “Here’s this book that highlights the worst of humanity and that deftly portrays images that (hopefully) only show up in nightmares these days; you should read it!” is one heck of a take, right? But you should. It brings honor to the survivors, honor to the memories of those who didn’t survive, when we read their stories and further our commitment to speaking out against human rights violations and working for a better world. It helps us to recognize the signs of fascist governments that are bound on stripping our fellow citizens of their rights and of their humanity. ‘Never again’ isn’t just a slogan; it’s a directive. And if we’re truly committed to an atrocity like the Holocaust never happening again, it’s up to us to understand it to the best of our ability. And that is why we should read these kinds of books, even when it’s hard and unpleasant and scary.

Heather Dune Macadam brings to life a world that no longer exists in pre-war Slovakia, and shows us the horrors that happen when we stop recognizing the humanity in others. This is a deeply important book, one that I recommend highly, but it’s okay to wait until you’re able to handle it, because it’s a lot.

Visit Heather Dune Macadam’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.