An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust [Paperback]

Henry A. Oertelt (Author), Stephanie Oertelt Samuels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

GOOD CONDITION, LIGHT WEAR, WILL SHIP FAST!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-The authors link together a chain of events or facts that saved Oertelt's life during the Holocaust. While in his early `20s, he and his family were sent to a succession of Nazi concentration camps. He recounts the horror of this time, the struggle to survive, and the efforts to help one another. He argues that 18 things kept him alive, 18 being the numeric value for the Hebrew word for "life." Among these links are the more commonplace, such as his good health before being incarcerated; his youth; and his profession of trained furniture maker, which occasionally helped him to secure less punishing work assignments. Others, however, are more remarkable, like the encounter with a foreman at a work site where Oertelt was working before being sent to the camps. This man, an assumed Nazi supporter, alerted the Jews on his crew to leave the site one day when the Nazis arrived, thereby giving them the chance to escape capture, if only for a little while. Written with a good deal of emotion, the book is very affecting. A solid choice for Holocaust-memoir collections.-Carol Faz-ioli, formerly at The Brearley School, New York City

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 9^-up. Oertelt, who lived with his older brother and widowed mother in Berlin, had just marked his twelfth birthday when Hitler came to power in January 1933. He begins with a firsthand account of Kristallnacht (November 9^-10, 1938), when the Nazis destroyed Jewish property and synagogues across Germany and Austria, and he recounts the many anti-Jewish directives that followed. Oertelt divides the book into 18 "links" in the chain of events that kept him alive. They include a Nazi foreman who warned him of an impending Gestapo roundup of Jews, giving him time to flee; a 15-month confinement in Theresienstadt concentration camp, where the chance of survival was somewhat better than at Auschwitz; and the fact that he remained in relatively good health and received medical treatment from an SS general-doctor when he did become ill. The two brothers survived, but their mother and most of their relatives were murdered. This is an extraordinary memoir of one brave individual's travail during the Holocaust. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Lerner Publications (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822529521
• ISBN-13: 978-0822529521
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Teens > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stirring memoir, August 26, 2000

By 

Robert N. Bernard (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust (Paperback)

Oertelt tells the story of his life in Germany from his 1938 until his liberation from a concentration camp. It is a stirring memoir -- heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. He uses the analogy of an 18 link chain to demonstrate how each link was important to his survival. The details in the book are remarkable in their lucidity and specificity. He is never graphic in his descriptions, but he is brutally honest. In the end, it is an uplifing tale in the context of terrible sadness.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book and Speaker, February 6, 2006

By 

BSR (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust (School & Library Binding)

Mr. Oertelt came and spoke at my college in MN when I was a junior. Not only was he an amazing speaker, but he made the Holocaust a reality to everyone packed in that auditorium. He signed his book for everyone who wished to purchase it. I read it in one night unable to out it down!!! Highly recommended!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust, March 11, 2010

By 

Theresa Degezelle "Terri DeGezelle, Children'... (MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust (Paperback)

An Unbroken Chain is a remarkable book. I used this book in my reserarch of the Holocaust which proved to be very helpful.