Customer Reviews

The Terezin Diary of Gonda Redlich

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The Diary of Gonda Redlich is an enlightening tale of life and death within Theresienstadt, the "resort" or "paradise" concentration camp of the Jewish Holocaust. Throughout the course of the diary, we see Theresienstadt from the first hand experiences of Gonda, the head of children's affairs and the transports. We learn of all of the great cultural activities of Theresienstadt, while we learn of the transports east to Auschwitz, the greatest death camp of all. The first hand experiences and writings of Gonda provide envaluable information to any serious historian of the Jewish Holocaust. Can any person read this book? Must you be a historian? No, I believe that this book can be read by anybody. It is a timeless tale of life (with the birth of Gonda's son and the activities in Theresienstadt) and death (Gonda eventually was sent to die in Auschwitz) in the final solution. It is first hand proof for the world of the horrors and sometimes joys in the Jewish Holocaust.

This is not a book to start with when reading about the Holocaust. Theresienstadt, the Potemkin village ghetto, was an unusual place and Redlich's experience there is not as universal as some, like Elie Wiesel. The book demands a fair amount of knowledge about the events of the Holocaust. That said, it's one of the most moving documents I've read from the period.

Unlike Anne Frank, Redlich writes from within the eye of the hurricane, rather than at its edges. His hope, tempered with his ignorance of his own fate, is wrenching, especially when his child is born and he writes the last few chapters as his son's diary. It literally brought me to tears. Highly recommended.