In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe--A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust [Hardcover]

Yehuda Koren (Author), Eilat Negev (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2004

In this remarkable, never-before-told account of the Ovitz family, seven of whose ten members were dwarves, readers bear witness to the terrible irony of the Ovitz’s fate: being burdened with dwarfism helped them to endure the Holocaust. Through research and interviews with the youngest Ovitz daughter, Perla, the troupe’s last surviving member, and other relatives, the authors weave the tale of a beloved and successful family of performers who were famous entertainers in Central Europe until the Nazis deported them to Auschwitz in May 1944. Descending into the hell of the concentration camp from the transport train, the Ovitz family—known widely as the Lilliput Troupe— was separated from other Jewish victims. When Josef Mengele was notified of their arrival, they were assigned better quarters and provided more nutritious food than other inmates. Authors Koren and Negev chronicle Mengele’s experiments upon this family and the creepy fondness he developed for them. Finally liberated by Russian troops, the family eventually found their way to a new home in Israel where they became wealthy and successful performers. In Our Hearts We Were Giants is a powerful testament to the human spirit, and a triumphant tale that no reader will forget. Photographs are included.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When the last of his 10 children was born in 1921, Shimshon Eizik Ovitz had the distinction of having fathered the largest dwarf family in the world. Twenty-four years later, his seven dwarf children, two of their normal-sized siblings and a handful of their spouses and cousins set a more tragic record as one of only two extended families to survive Auschwitz intact. The same physical characteristics that frequently rendered them helpless made them endlessly appealing to the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, who tormented them in the name of genetic research. The Ovitz family history is fascinating, as is the dwarf lore that Israeli journalists Koren and Negev have unearthed, but the real drama—aside from the horror of the Holocaust—is in the relationships the Ovitzes formed with Mengele as well as with one another, their spouses, extended family and with the Slomowitzes, fellow townspeople who pretended to be relatives so that they, too, would be spared. Much of the family history comes from the last surviving Ovitz daughter, Perla, who died in 2001, and her nephew, Shimshon, who was a toddler in Auschwitz. Perla is a compelling blend of pride and misery, her nephew a sorrowful adult whose difficult childhood was followed by a troubled adolescence. Their stories, and those of their family, are unique and unforgettable. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The Ovitz family--seven dwarfs and three normal-statured siblings--traveled through Transylvania and neighboring lands singing songs for enthusiastic audiences in the 1930s and early 1940s. Then in 1944, they were shipped with thousands of other Jews to Auschwitz, where the infamous Dr. Mengele took an interest in them. Saved from immediate murder by Mengele, they were treated far better than the average resident of Auschwitz. Although forced to suffer through painful and humiliating medical tests, they kept their own clothes and were better fed than others at the camp. They survived Mengele's experiments, eventually moving to Israel and going on a successful reunion tour before retiring to run a cinema together. Employing information culled from interviews with friends and the last surviving Ovitz sister, Koren and Negev explore with considerable depth the Ovitzes' complicated relationships with their size; one another; and their awful savior, Mengele. The sometimes melodramatic writing detracts a bit from the inherently powerful story, but this is a quirky, illuminating addition to Holocaust history. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; 1ST edition (April 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786713658
• ISBN-13: 978-0786713653
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,362,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Seven Dwarfs, September 22, 2004

By 

beckyjean "beckyjean" (East Granby, CT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe--A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust (Hardcover)

The story of the Ovitz family's devotion to one other and to their religion is by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking. By now, many of us have read books, seen movies, and heard stories about extraordinary survival won through that extraordinary horror, the Holocaust. This book stands with the best of those stories because of its uniqueness -- seven of the 10 Ovitzes were dwarfs, and therefore the entire family became the special "pets" of the dreaded Dr. Mengele.

The writing is hardly slick or seamless, but it gets the job done in a more than satisfactory manner. The text seems to speak English with an accent, and while that can be a tad distracting at times, it confers that much more veracity upon the story of the Ovitzes.

The resourcefulness, dedication, and intelligence of the Ovitz dwarfs enables the reader to see them as much more than medical curiosities. Not only are they real people, they're very special people. Frankly, people of this caliber would be worth writing a book about even if they were of normal stature. Dwarfism aside, the story of the Ovitzes is that of a loving, close-knit, traditional family of a type that seems sadly alien to many of us today.

The family's Jewish faith remains strong even in the face of growing persecution. When it is decreed that Jewish performers may perform only for Jewish audiences, the Ovitzes skillfully contrive to obtain identification papers that do not identify them as Jews, yet they remain observant by conveniently falling ill on every sabbath, so they do not have to perform. Later, when they are held in the concentration camp, they manage to say prayers and fashion makeshift candles in secret observance of holidays.

The suffering the Ovitzes endured at the hands of Mengele is not related in excruciating detail, but what information we are given is excruciating enough. This book is generally more vague, more poetic about the concentration-camp atrocities than other books, but it is no less horrifying.

Horrifying, too, are some of the details of the Ovitzes' lives after the war. They remain devoted to one another, and continue to stick together, but now they are also bonded by what haunts them. Their nephew -- who was only a baby in the camp and learned to call Mengele "Daddy" so that he might be spared from torture -- recalls being awakened frequently by his aunts and uncles screaming in their sleep.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book are the conflicting accounts of the dwarfs' activities in the concentration camp. Several witnesses claim to have seen the Ovitzes performing in the camp, whereas the Ovitzes always firmly maintained that they did not perform -- and indeed, would not have done such a thing. Other witnesses claim to have seen several of the dwarves kowtowing to Mengele and to have heard them praising him to the other prisoners. The Ovitzes deny this as well.

The authors of the book do not attempt to clear up these discrepancies; they simply present both sides, and acknowledge that perhaps certain people's memories are clouded or inaccurate. I admired this tactic.

This remarkable family made their way in a world that gave them very little more than sharp minds, winning personalities, each other, and their strong faith. Though they did gain wealth and widespread renown before and after the war, during the very darkest years of their lives, the barest essentials -- wits and wit, family and faith -- turned out to be riches in themselves.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting family, May 12, 2006

By 

kohoutekdriver8 "kohoutekdriver8" (Midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe: A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust (Paperback)

The family photo on the cover is a classic, and I first saw it as a child in a Time-Life series book. The condition has since been diagnosed as pseudoachondroplasia, a genetic disorder of the cartilage.

Even if it weren't for the religious persecution and horrendous experiments performed on them by Dr. Mengele, this would have been a fascinating story about a challenged family who rose above their obstacles, without being exploited, to lead fulfilling lives. All appeared to be emotionally well-adjusted and totally lacking in self-pity.

People who are interested in the Holocaust and/or dwarfism should read this book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unforgettable perspective on the nightmare of the Holocaust, February 9, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe: A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust (Paperback)

Penned by a pair of Israeli journalists, In Our Hearts We Were Giants is the never-before-told true story of the Ovitz family, seven of them dwarfs, who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust - yet in an odd twist of fate, their dwarfism actually helped them to survive. Serving as popular entertainers until the Nazis deported them to Auschwitz in May 1944, the Ovitz family - widely known as the Lilliput Troupe - were separated from other Jewish victims. The notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, his diabolic "research" on twins and other genetically unique individuals already underway, took a special interest in the Ovitzes. Even as he arranged for vile experiments to be performed upon the Ovitzes, he developed a bizarre fondness for them and their will to survive. Pieced together from interviews with the last surviving Ovitz sibling and her relatives, medical documentation, archival lists, and original Auschwitz records, In Our Hearts We Were Giants is an unforgettable perspective on the nightmare of the Holocaust.