I brought this book new. I thought about it a bit before I purchased it as it is a large book to read and the material at times is a little hard going but I am really glad I did. Obviously I have read a lot of Holocaust associated books written by or in collaboration with survivors of WWII, both Jewish and non-Jewish - this one is a little bit different to the rest both in the fact that Mendelsohn himself wasnt a survivor nor were his grandparents, and that he really pulls no punches. This book tells the story of how Mendelsohn tracks down and tells the story both of his great-uncles family disappearance into the holocaust and of the incidious nature of the brutality that Jews recieved at the hands of not just the Nazis, but also the Ukranians. The sheer horrific nature of the brutality metered out is told in unflinching terms and it has to be this is what happened. It happened just this way.
I really, really enjoyed this book. But be aware it is a large book and I did eventually skip over the Torah portions, as for me it detracted rather than enhanced my reading of the remainder of the book. I really liked how he told the story of this little town in Ukraine, which for all intents and purposes fell into a William Golding mold, where the thin veneer of civilisation was so quickly ripped away. What gets me in this book was that even the Nazi's were horrified at the treatment dealt out to the Jews by the Ukranians, when it became obvious that the Jews had no rights and it was a free for all. We often think of the Holocaust and how the Nazi's were just plain evil and what they did was horrific. This true, but we forget that they walked into countries where the non-Jews were often just as bad as the Nazis - Anti semitism didnt go away because Germany was defeated either. I found this interesting too and Mendelsohn investigates this as well - where Jews returned home expecting to go back to living their lives as they had previously only to find people living in their houses refusing to move or to acknowledge that they didnt own the building. Often it was easier just to leave and make a new start.
Recently I went to a talk by a survivor who escaped from Austria just before the war proper started. I welled up when he read a letter from a family member who was deported that day the letter was written and died in the gas chambers. I got to hold a prewar German Austrian Jewish passport in my hands and saw that the survivors uncle had just made it into England with two months to spare before no escape could be had when the war started proper. I was overwhelmed a bit I think, I ended up sitting there just looking at this passport in my hands and thinking my God how lucky were you.
I think we need to read books such as this, where it is a one on one personal story, six million plus is too large a number to take in, to understand the horrific nature of what happened in Europe not just 1939 to 1945, but more 1933 to 1950. The only way to truly understand what occurred and still is occurring if we are honest with ourselves, is to read the personal accounts to see the ripple effects of one persons actions. There are many published accounts of people doing the right thing often at great personal cost to themselves, unfortunately there are also many more unpublished accounts of whole towns, not just one soul, not doing the right thing.
Verdict: Read this book - it is well worth keeping at it, it is large and at times can be a bit chunky, but worth it.
S.
