Customer Reviews

The Final Journey

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Eleven year old Alice is loved and spoiled endlessly. But when her and her grandfather are thrust onto a cattle truck with no idea of where they`re going, everything in Alice`s life changes. This book is so horrifyingly realistic. The description of the things and people surrounding Alice in the cattle truck is terrifying. You actually feel like your in the disgusting cattle truck, feeling scared and confused. And when Alice first deals with the delemma of death and the miracle of birth you feel her emotions jumping off the page. This book is really amazing in it`s reality of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Attending a german school in 8th grade ('95), I first read this book (in it's original german) for a book rewiew and thoroughly enjoyed it. The story about a girl named Alice describes what it was like for Jews and others to travel to the concetration camps on cattle cars with the unending thirst, heat/cold, death, excrement and fear. It has a double importance for me because Mrs. Pausewang came to our area library and gave a speech on her writing. She is actually a surviving victim of the holocaust herself so she wrote this with experience. The end of the book is a really touching one as is the rest of the story. This story was one of my first favorite books. In fact, I liked it so much, I had my dad pick up a copy of it on a return trip to Germany so I would have it. Now, while doing research for my college Holocaust class I found out that it is translated into English so more people are able to read this wonderful story. Now I can finally recommend it to everyone.

The book was a marvelous book but it also makes you feel grief, and sadness for the main characters. A young girl, Alice, who is Jewish, has been taken away from her home by men she has no clue are. Taken with her, were her grandparents. Alice lives with them because her parents had to myssteriously leave the country, she hadn't heard from them in a while.
Alice's granmother also dissaperas at the train station where they were taken by the strange men. So now its Alice and her grandfather left alone on the train for who know how long? Maybe days. Along with them there is a family of 5, a strange old man, and other mysterious characters you will read about. So Alice's journey begins on this train of the unknown, no idea where she is going or what will happen to her and her grandfather when they get there. While you read this book you will discover that its about good and evil and who wins doesn't matter but what really matters is that bravery faces the face of evil.

A wonderful book. Honest, realistic, terrifying, with characters that you get to know perfectly and pray that somehow they will escape. At the same time as being a book about the Holocaust it is a beautiful, tragic coming-of-age story, and the plot lines are woven together expertly. I just can't recommend this enough. However, it is definitely not for readers under 13 or 14. I also recommend Art Spiegelman's _Maus_ for an original, thought-provoking book about the Holocaust.

I got this book because my children's librarian told me that I have got to read it. I am into the Holocaust and this sort of thing interest me. What I didn't know was how gross this book would get. I started reading it thinking that it would be something I have read before. WRONG! The author makes you feel like you are in the train with all of those other people and the stench of the bathroom corner. I starting crying half way near the end of the book and I couldn't stop until the very end. I would recomand this book 14 and up. Not 14 and below, you will half some nightmares about it. Overall this is the best book I have every read.

This book was so sad. The vivd details of the train ride and the way they little girl "Mousie" felt was so vivid and descriptive. I'm rating this book the very best like it deserves. Gudrun Pasewang really did his homework to make this story as moving as it was. I recommend this book to ANYONE who is questing the Holocaust from the camps to the train rides to the horror everyone Jewish or not everyone felt the pain. As Alice was waiting for her parents to come back from the dentist's camp where her mother was being kept due to a tooth ache, her and her grandparents were taken away. As the horrifing ride went on she lost people she loved. Then he describes they worries she felt as she walked into the showers. I wish everyone could have the chance to read this book.

I rate this book five stars. I think that it gives a realistic feel to what the Jews had to go through in the second world war. I'm fifteen now, and for years the Holocaust has fascinated me. Pausewang's book, The Final Journey, depicts how many Jews were rousted out of their houses and sent to concentration camps in cattle cars because the Germans didn't think that they were worth wasting passenger cars on. What Alice goes through on her journey to Auschwitz and the thoughts she had were the same as many people sent out in the same way. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is or isn't interested in the Holocaust.

Gudrun Pausewang is an amazing author! When she wrote The Final Journey, she thought of things no one else would have...The train ride. This page turning story is about Alice Dubsky, a little girl from the West, being taken away from her home with her grandmother and grandfather. Alice witnesses some pretty scary things on this train ride, like not having a lot of food or water, and having to go to the bathroom in the corner of the cattle car. Alice also learns about what will eventually happen to her. Gudrun has explained Alice's journey so well! You will cry so hard for a very long time, I did!

I read this book a few years ago when I was in fifith grade. I was shocked and heartbroken by the time I finished. As you read this book you always know how it is going to end by the lack of hope, the lack of happiness. You never have any illusions, but you try to convince yourself it will be alright, sort of like that poor little girl.

Eric Gavorski

The title of my book is The final Journey. The book is about the Holocaust. There is a little gewish girl in the story named alice and she is living with her grandparents because her parents are away but all alice knows is there in the east. Alice doesnt know anything about the holocaust and everything that is going on. her grandparents and parents have lied to her, her whole life. Whenever something happends involving gews and alice finds out about it she is just told a lie. Alice has no idea what is going on in the world until it happens to her.
One night a bunch of german soldiers came into the basement of the house because they knew there were jews living there. They came to take alice and her granparents to a gewish camp. Her granparents know what is happening right now but Alice has no idea. The German soldiers take Alice and her grandparents to a train station where there are thousands of other gews getting on trains to. They get on the train now and they are in there with 50 other people so there is much space. The train starts to move and this starts a long journey.
They've been on the train for hours now and everyone is getting impatient and crowded. The train starts to stop and they are at some station. Everyone is really thirsty and wants water. People on the trains start to yell and scream to anyone off the train to bring them water. The train starts to move again and no one got any water. Its been days since they have gotten on this train and alice is getting very suspiciouse about where they are going. There are other girls on the train and they are telling her about where they are going and what has been going on in the world and in the past years. She figures out that her parents are already at a camp in the east. Alice is very angry and she confornts her grandfather about it. She starts yelling at him and asking him why he and her parents lied to her. All he could say was we thought you were to young before he had a heart attack and died. She doesnt reall know what has just happen until she finally relizies her grandfather is dead. She doens't know what to do. She is all alone she has no familt with her.
The train stops again and they are at the camp. Alice goes into a building with a bunch of other women and children. She is told to undress and so is everyone else. They are all going to take a shower. They go into a room with not many shower spouts. She doesnt care though she just cant wait to get wet. She holds her arms up in the air waiting for the water to come down and only hoping for the best to happen.
I liked this book very much. It was very sad though. I wish there would have been a little more about the camp more and less about the ride there, but it was a good book and i recomend you read it.