Eva Marie L. (babyjulie) -
Martin Small had an amazing life. It was alternately amazingly joyful and amazingly atrocious. Mr. Small went through things the normal mind can't begin to concieve. One of the things I liked most about this book is that it doesn't proclaim to make you understand, it's showing you that you can never understand. This book has reinforced my desire to read and learn all I can about this awful period in history. I only wish I had the chance to hear a survivor speak. Soon that chance will be gone.
Most of the books I've read by survivors of the Holocaust have detailed the awful atrocities that they lived through. While Small includes a great many experiences of his own (how could he not?) the book isn't about that. As he says, there are enough books telling what actually happened in the camps, he could add no more to that part of it. Small chose to target and enlarge everything else. Family relationships, neighbors, places he's lived and loved, his religon, Israel, his dreams and childhood, etc. Interspersed throughout the book are parts that are so difficult to read. I force myself through because these people lived through this. The very least I can do is read their experiences and share what burden I can.
There are so many "strange" happenings in Small's life. From escaping the camp with a Jewish doctor and having the doctor do what he can to help with a gunshot wound to his arm and meeting him again later in a DP camp in Italy to becoming friends with the U.S. soldier who carried his wasting body out of his bunk to a waiting ambulance for decades before either learned what roll they'd played in the others past.
One of his comments that will stay with me that I absolutely adore:
"...if you looked down at us all from heaven, you'd hardly see the differences." How true. The world would be a better place if more people took that to heart.
I recommend to anyone and everyone who reads Holocaust literature. Smalls talked about not forgetting the past. How he had to deal with the horror to keep the joyful memories. Reading through the horror is the least the next generations can do and while doing that we also get the joy.
Most of the books I've read by survivors of the Holocaust have detailed the awful atrocities that they lived through. While Small includes a great many experiences of his own (how could he not?) the book isn't about that. As he says, there are enough books telling what actually happened in the camps, he could add no more to that part of it. Small chose to target and enlarge everything else. Family relationships, neighbors, places he's lived and loved, his religon, Israel, his dreams and childhood, etc. Interspersed throughout the book are parts that are so difficult to read. I force myself through because these people lived through this. The very least I can do is read their experiences and share what burden I can.
There are so many "strange" happenings in Small's life. From escaping the camp with a Jewish doctor and having the doctor do what he can to help with a gunshot wound to his arm and meeting him again later in a DP camp in Italy to becoming friends with the U.S. soldier who carried his wasting body out of his bunk to a waiting ambulance for decades before either learned what roll they'd played in the others past.
One of his comments that will stay with me that I absolutely adore:
"...if you looked down at us all from heaven, you'd hardly see the differences." How true. The world would be a better place if more people took that to heart.
I recommend to anyone and everyone who reads Holocaust literature. Smalls talked about not forgetting the past. How he had to deal with the horror to keep the joyful memories. Reading through the horror is the least the next generations can do and while doing that we also get the joy.
Sandra Phillips (rolfeswife) -
This is my second or 3rd copy, excellent Holocaust survivor story
