Customer Reviews

Memory Fields

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4 star:		(1)
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A fine, well written memoir of one of the few Jewish survivors of the "Shoah" in Slovakia. A young boy and his sister are sent to a Catholic orphanage to survive WWII. Very human, often sadly humorous; a wonderfully touching Christmas scene where the author and his sister sing "Silent Night", in German, to one of the occupation officers -- since the Slovak orphans do not know German... The author intimates, but does not divulge many, harsh Nun disciplines; but dispensed fairly to all. There are interesting notes about playing chess, learnt from his father; the whispered myth that a Jew would convert into a Christian and become Pope -- with the author learning many Catholic prayers by heart, in Latin, fanning hopes for such a possibility; snippets of fervent Nazi anti-Jew, anti-Catholic actions ("Jesus was a Jewish child..." as the Nazis murder a priest). A sad, moving ending. Recently translated into Slovak.

I liked this book even though I didn't rate it highly.
Breznitz did a good job detailing his life in wartime Slovakia and his placement in a Catholic orphanage. His troubles surviving the war are touching. No one should be made to feel this sense of tragedy. What got in the way was Shlomo's rationalizing in the book. Some of these thoughts confused me because they made it hard to follow the story.
This book is a good read detailing the suffering of one person. However there are better books out there. If one wants to read about the Holocaust, there are some great books out there such as the Diary of Anne Frank.