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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A painful and emotional saga, March 24, 2001
This novel tells the fictional story of two Germans, one on each side of the holocaust. Rudi Weiss is a young Jewish boy whose family refuses to acknowledge the growing threat of Hitler and the Nazis. They realize too late that they should have left Germany and become embroiled in the persecution and elimination of the Jews. Erik Dorf is a new lawyer whose wife prods him to become an SS officer under the direction of Heydrich. He rises quickly through the ranks of the SS and it is disturbing to see how his nonchalance about the Jews becomes full-fledged hatred throughout the course of the story. The book alternates the voices of Weiss and Dorf, effectively showing both sides of the conflict in a manner that will both educate you about why Hitler chose the Jews as a scapegoat and shock you with its sometimes graphic depiction of abuse and humiliation. This book needs to be read so that the horrifying memory of the Holocaust will never be forgotten or repeated.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Two Sides, March 30, 2004
To those of us growing up now; with no first-hand knowledge of the Holocaust; to those of us uninterested in our history as humans; and to those of us who will make the decisions in the future...I recommend this book, maybe more than any other I have read. I have been to the camps, have seen the ovens, the barracks...but they are just things, gruesome things, to be sure, but things. It is the people who did the acts of the Holocaust that we must resolve to never become. This book tells the story of two families on both sides of the Holocaust. Rudi's family is completely destroyed. Eric Dorff and his family survive the war. But who triumphed? In the end, it was Rudi. Why? Because, when it was all over, he was still human. I also recommend "The Hiding Place."
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, October 1, 1999
This is an amazing human document. Although fiction, it will not be surprising to hear stories like this from that era. I for one don't believe that german wives and other german civvies were not aware of what was happening in the camps. They just chose to ignore it out of fear or whatever. However that is irrelevant to this review. But if there was one book that somebody asked me about the holocaust to read from an emotional (which is how it should be looked at) and not a statistical(Those big numbers and experiments) sta ndpoint, this will be it.
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