Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem [Paperback]

Solly Ganor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2003

Forty-seven years after he was found half-dead in the snow, following a death march from Dachau, Solly Ganor again came face to face with his rescuer Clarence Matsumura at a reunion of Holocaust survivors and their American liberators. That meeting proved a catharsis, enabling Ganor to confront for the first time the catalogue of horrors he experienced during the Second World War. Beginning in prewar Lithuania, Light One Candle tells of the ominous changes that took place once Hitler came to power in 1933, of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul who wrote thousands of exit visas for Jews fleeing the Nazi onslaught, of the brutal conditions in the Kaunas ghetto where Ganor spent most of the war, and of Stutthoff and Dachau, the concentration camps he was shuttled to and from in the last, desperate days of the war. Unflinching in its depiction of evil but uplifting in its story of the survival of the human spirit, Light One Candle is a gripping memoir that waited fifty years to be told.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This well-crafted, affecting memoir offers a detailed account of the author's struggle to survive the German occupation of Lithuania amid the terrorizing, torture and liquidation of most of the inhabitants of the Kaunas ghetto during WWII. Ganor describes the diabolical way the Nazis turned gentile Lithuanians against Jews and, inside the ghetto itself, neighbor against neighbor. Remaining useful to the Germans was the only way to survive, and Ganor recounts how the Jewish Council set up vocational classes to teach carpentry and other skills. In the end, Ganor was unable to avoid being sent to Dachau concentration camp, from which he was liberated at the eleventh hour by American troops. In postwar years he became a self-described "emotional amputee" who worked hard to suppress his bitter memories of the war. Yet in 1992, he experienced an almost miraculous second liberation when he met Clarence Matsumuru, a veteran of the Japanese American unit that liberated Dachau?and the very man who rescued Ganor from the brink of extinction on May 2, 1945. This absorbing memoir, with its record of suffering and catharsis, is a valuable addition to Holocaust literature.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

On June 22, 1941, 13-year-old Solly Ganor and his family fled their home in Kaunas, Lithuania, when the German Luftwaffe attacked. Two months later, they were forced to enter the Kaunas ghetto, where they suffered from hunger, backbreaking labor, beatings, disease, cold, fear, and humiliation. Many of the Jews were murdered by the Germans and Lithuanians. In June_ 1944, the author and his father were sent to Dachau, from which they were rescued by Japanese American soldiers on May 2, 1945. The author's sister survived; his mother and brother perished. Forty-seven years later, Ganor was reunited with his rescuer in Israel. Light One Candle is an extraordinary memoir, an incredible story of hope and faith in the face of evil. George Cohen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 354 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha USA; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (April 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568363524
• ISBN-13: 978-1568363523
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,182,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > History > Europe > Lithuania

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best personal account of the Holocaust I've read., April 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem (Hardcover)

In LIGHT ONE CANDLE, Solly Ganor takes the reader into that nightmare world of the Holocaust--I could practically feel the harsh elements, the constant danger of the camps. This book isn't anther rote recitation of death counts. There's so much heart and compassion for all those sweptup in these horrors. The insights into camp life include the primal nature of life stripped to itsbasics--such as the "storyteller" who keeps the outside world and traditions alive. Particularly poignant is Cooky, Ganor's childhood friend whose account of the slaughter at the Ninth Fort is more compelling than Dante's own descent into Hell. Ipersonally feel Ganor's book is deserving of some national/international award. Actually, reading the book I wonder how Ganor got it all done. It must have been so painful to revisit these terrible, incomprehensible, sublime, poignant memories. To me it's the best book on the Holocaust, personal or otherwise--certainly it should be a companion to any serious study of this subject. To me it hits at the heart, gets into the soul. It's the humanity of the account,particularly those heart-rending final glimpses of the condemned trying to smile as they wave good-bye.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most gripping and heart wrenching book I've ever read., March 19, 1999

By 

Rudy Burwell (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem (Hardcover)

This book touched a part of my soul and humanity more than any other book I have read in recent memory. The incredible detail in which Mr. Ganor describes the horrors of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, and his subsequent confinement in concentration camps is absolutely chilling. I turned each page with horrid fascination with the thought that things couldn't get worse for Mr. Ganor and his family; it always did. Mr. Ganor recounts his story with eloquent but simple prose that draws the reader directly into his world of loss, torture, cruelty, and often times heroic deeds. Even if you consider yourself a fairly good student of history (which I did), this book will most likely destroy any notion that you really "understand" the overwhelming horrors and atrocities committed during this dreadful time in our history. This book is one for the ages, and is proof positive that we should never forget.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I was deeply moved by this courageous work., October 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem (Hardcover)

I just completed Light One Candle and it sits deeply in my heart. I am now doing consulting work in Lithuania and I wanted to read more about this country. This is the reason I picked up the book. As well, though, I am a baby-boomer and so was born after World War II. All I know of the war is what I have seen in movies, TV or read. But this sad, yet courageous book helped me understand the war as I have never understood it. Little did I know how deeply I would be affected. Solly Ganor is a remarkable man and I have enormous respect for his bravery is such wretched times. In addition, though, this book taught me how much I owe to those thousands of American men and women who gave their lives so that Solly and I could live a normal life. I had never understood this before. Thank you, Solly Ganor, for teaching me so many things.