Never to Be Forgotten: A Young Girl's Holocaust Memoir [Hardcover]

Beatrice Muchman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Muchman was born in Berlin in 1933. In March 1939, she, her parents, and four relatives fled to Brussels to escape the Nazi regime. In 1942, Germany occupied Belgium, and Muchman's parents brought her and her cousin to the home of two Catholic women for safekeeping. Her parents were killed; she survived and was ultimately brought to the U.S., where she was adopted by an aunt and uncle in Chicago. Muchman grew up believing that her Jewish parents had abandoned her. In 1990, a box was discovered in her uncle's home that contained faded letters, documents, and old photographs; the letters had been written by her parents in the 1940s. "I finally was able to discover, in a deep, fundamental way, that my parents had loved me more than life itself," the author relates. This important book brings the enormous magnitude of the Holocaust down to a very personal level. It contains poignant black-and-white family photographs and reproductions of passports and other documents. George Cohen

From Kirkus Reviews

A portrait of a Jewish child's life in hiding in Belgium during the Holocaust, based on recently rediscovered letters by the author's parents, her own childhood diaries, and other documents. The author's family had fled Germany after Kristallnacht, but they got no further than Belgium, thanks to the reluctance of many countries to take in Jewish refugees. This antipathy is exemplified here by an emigration form filed by the family that was rejected for a technicality: A ``single typographical error,'' Muchman notes, ``could spell the difference between life and death.'' Thus trapped in Brussels, Muchman's parents managed to place their young daughter in a Christian household in rural Belgium, and the emotional high point of the book comes when, in the fall of 1942, her despairing father comes to say what would prove to be a final goodbye. He and his wife were soon arrested and killed. Because up to this point the narrative is more reconstructed from the letters and documents than it is recalled, there is a sense of remove- -readers do not get to know the girl's father and mother as personalities. The memoir becomes more engaging when it relies on her frank diary entries. Young Beatrice, with a negligible religious upbringing, took to celebrating mass and eating snails with relish. After the war she was adopted by an aunt and uncle in Chicago, and like many other survivors, she tried to forget the Holocaust. Her daughter's discovery of the letters and diary, however, allowed Muchman to not only remember her past, but also to get over the lingering childhood conviction that her parents had abandoned her. As a diarist, Muchman was younger and more vain and materialistic than Anne Frank. But her adult use of the diary and the recollections is inspired, when not slowed down by bureaucratic documents, and effectively portrays the upheavals of her lost-and- found life. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 124 pages
• Publisher: Ktav Pub Inc (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 088125598X
• ISBN-13: 978-0881255980
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,450,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars important reading, February 19, 2010

By 

Kathy Gold - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Never to Be Forgotten: A Young Girl's Holocaust Memoir (Hardcover)

Should be required reading in high school, college and university. This book is "never to be forgotten."

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written memoir., October 18, 1999

By 

Catherine Sullivan (Flossmoor, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Never to Be Forgotten: A Young Girl's Holocaust Memoir (Hardcover)

My book discussion group greatly enjoyed reading this book. And having the author, Beatrice Muchman, join us for her cogent analysis added to the pleasure. It is a thoughtful tribute not only to her family but also the many non-Jews who helped her survive the horrors of Nazi Germany during World War II.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, beautiful remembrance, April 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Never to Be Forgotten: A Young Girl's Holocaust Memoir (Hardcover)

Mrs. Muchman is a wonderful writer and person. She expresses her life so wonderfully and beautifully. I myself am very much interested in the Holocaust and this is a very interesting perspective of this era. Thankyou Mrs. Muchman for sharing with readers your experience.