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Yehuda Koren
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In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe--A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust Hardcover – April 1, 2004

by Yehuda Koren (Author), Eilat Negev (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 415 ratings
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A moving, powerful tale of survival under the most extreme circumstances recalls the experiences of the Ovitz family--a troupe of performing dwarves, all relatives, who were deported to Auschwitz, but managed to stay alive, despite special attention from the camp's Angel of Death, Joseph Mengele.
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  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Da Capo Press
  4. Publication date
    April 1, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    5.75 x 1.25 x 8.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0786713658
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0786713653
  8. See all details
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  1. Giants The Dwarfs of Auschwitz
    Eilat Koren Yehuda;Negev
     
    Hardcover
    $17.90
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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
415 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the story amazing and remarkable. They describe the book as informative, worthwhile, and unforgettable. Readers praise the writing quality as well-written and easy to read. Opinions differ on the suspenseful aspect of the story, with some finding it thrilling and shocking while others consider it tragic and heartwarming.

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Story qualityReadabilityWriting qualityDifficulty to put downSuspenseful story
27 customers mention "Story quality"27 positive0 negative

Customers find the story inspiring and moving. They describe it as an amazing tale of survival, courage, and strength. The book is described as a page-turner about the life of a single family during the Holocaust.

"...In the end I finished with admiration for the resilience and resourcefulness of the Ovitzs and appreciation of the enduring human and family values..." Read more

"Inspiring, shocking, sad, fascinating, moving, horrifying, uplifting and much else in between...." Read more

"The story of a legendary family from a tiny village in Transylvania before the Jewish pograms and Hitler's Final Solution...." Read more

"...This is an incredible story of bravery, love, and suvival unlike any other. I sincerely hope you read it. I hope it changes you just a little. Peace." Read more

18 customers mention "Readability"18 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative and well-researched. They find it interesting and worth learning about. The book is described as a must-read for young and old, with great photos.

"...The book was well-researched and written and the photos were a great enhancement to the story but be warned; this is not a book to read for..." Read more

"...The authors did a tremendous job researching this mostly unknown history and interviewed some of those who were involved or witnesses. Exceptional!" Read more

"...I can't describe what a great book this is....I don't have the words.What a amazing family these people were!!!..." Read more

"...Well corroborated and cross-referenced, the story, while scholarly 8n places, retains its personal, human story." Read more

4 customers mention "Writing quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the writing quality. They find it well-written and easy to read, making it hard to put down.

"...The book was well-researched and written and the photos were a great enhancement to the story but be warned; this is not a book to read for..." Read more

"...It is well written and after reading the paperback I wanted their story on my kindle.It was well worth the money...." Read more

"...This is a very easy read and very hard to put down. I highly recommend it as an astonishing story of hope and survival and love." Read more

"Well written account of people with more courage than I could ever hope for...." Read more

3 customers mention "Difficulty to put down"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book an easy read that is hard to put down.

"...This is a very easy read and very hard to put down. I highly recommend it as an astonishing story of hope and survival and love." Read more

"The book is hard to put down. Unbelievable story! Amazing that they survived." Read more

"...This book was hard for me to put down. My parents both read it, and liked it also." Read more

5 customers mention "Suspenseful story"2 positive3 negative

Customers have different views on the story. Some find it amazing and shocking, while others consider it poignant and distressing.

"This is an interesting but very poignant and at times, distressing tale...." Read more

"Inspiring, shocking, sad, fascinating, moving, horrifying, uplifting and much else in between...." Read more

"This book was tragic but heartwarming...." Read more

"Amazing and Terrifying!..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Blues Babe
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, Not A Light Read
    Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This is an interesting but very poignant and at times, distressing tale. The book was well-researched and written and the photos were a great enhancement to the story but be warned; this is not a book to read for entertainment. However, for a student of history and human nature it is very worthwhile. This was a book that I had to walk away from on occasion because I felt sorrow and anger on behalf of the characters. Still, I was involved in the narrative and it never occurred to me to abandon the story. In the end I finished with admiration for the resilience and resourcefulness of the Ovitzs and appreciation of the enduring human and family values that led to their amazing survival during their imprisonment as well as throughout their lives. This story is a glimpse into a widespectrum of individuals and societies of noble, ignoble, and horrendously evil character.
    13 people found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars What a Story!
    Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Inspiring, shocking, sad, fascinating, moving, horrifying, uplifting and much else in between. The seven Romanian dwarfs and their families were a well known group of entertainers before WWII, singing, acting, dancing, playing miniature but professional instruments and dressed to kill. They survived Auschwitz because Josef Mengele took a special interest in them and gave them better living conditions than most. However, this also included his own brand of "medical research" for them. The authors did a tremendous job researching this mostly unknown history and interviewed some of those who were involved or witnesses. Exceptional!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Chest Pain
    Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    The story of a legendary family from a tiny village in Transylvania before the Jewish pograms and Hitler's Final Solution.
    What makes this telling different and more painful is how difficult the lives of the Orvitz family was because of the dwarfism seven of them suffered even before Auschwitz imprisonment. Yet they always remained together, made family decisions together and watched over each other with the assistance of the able bodied family and yes, friends.
    Dr. Mengele took charge over them and performed his awful experiments under the guise of medical knowledge. I was horrified to learn he never paid for even one atrocity and perhaps lived until the 1980's with his country's economy support!!
    If you read this you may find even though the family was successful and found a niche in the musical world they suffered day to day because of the limitations of their bodies and in the prisons even more difficulty was incurred.
    As long as I live I will never forget this courageous family and will tell their story as often as I get an opportunity!
    15 people found this helpful
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  • Mighty KC
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing and Terrifying!
    Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Just when you think ,most reverently, that you have listened to the stories, read the stories, you have wept through the all the stories; an unimaginable story is revealed. Dwarves???? .... 7 of them???? ....And they survived??? ! Then you read of the remarkable sibling love, so tender and faithful. I truly thought that maybe this story of triumph, wouldn't hurt, wouldn't make me ashamed of my self absorption. It did, and I am. I hope to be kinder, to my family, and maybe myself. This is an incredible story of bravery, love, and suvival unlike any other. I sincerely hope you read it. I hope it changes you just a little. Peace.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Darlene
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful story of strength and courage
    Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    I had read this book in paperback a few years ago that belonged to a friend. I can't describe what a great book this is....I don't have the words.What a amazing family these people were!!! To have suffered such horrible conditions because of a monster.It is well written and after reading the paperback I wanted their story on my kindle.It was well worth the money.I did read it again and I feel there are seven shining stars in heaven together looking down on us all.
    One person found this helpful
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  • sharon f. leff
    4.0 out of 5 stars Small in Stature, Colossal in Character
    Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    —- dwarfism saved the lives of this family and by extension another family too. Timing of Dr. Mengle’s research approval afforded him means and opportunities to experiment on twin and dwarfs.

    Because they had been instructed throughout their lives to stay together, the6 found strength in their family’s unity. Fr much of their time in camp, they were able to avoid separation by gender. Eventually, post liberation of camps, they reach Haifa and reside in Israel where they revive their performances.

    Well corroborated and cross-referenced, the story, while scholarly 8n places, retains its personal, human story.
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  • cynthia jacobson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Heartwarming book in tragic times
    Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    This book was tragic but heartwarming. Their story needed to be told and the courage and attitudes that helped them endure their struggles was perseverance at its best. May this never happen again, but unfortunately it looks like inhumane cruelty to other members of the human race continues even today. May we learn the lessons of survival but also learn to love others. The first Holocaust book I ever read was about Corrie Ten Boom. And the lessons she learned on how to love her enemies is profound.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Nikki
    3.0 out of 5 stars This book was missing something...
    Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I enjoyed reading this book in general, but I found that the authors failed to give me much personal insight into the people whose lives they describe from birth to death. For me, there was an odd sterility to it. It read more like an historical biography than one where the authors have access to living memories. There were multiple mentions throughout the book that Perla was willing to talk about their experiences, and yet there are few personal insights, especially in the second half of the book. Either the authors avoided asking painful questions or deliberately handled the family's story with kid gloves, it seems. The facts of their lives from birth to death are here, but not their experiences. It also seemed that anything unpleasant inside the family was glossed over as quickly as possible. This amazing family and their life experiences were so unique, I have to take two stars off for the book that this could have been.
    7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Lynda Cooper
    5.0 out of 5 stars Devoted to each other
    Reviewed in Canada on December 30, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    While a story of tremendous heartache and loss, it is also a portrait of love and family.

    An uncompromising and honest story of a remarkable family that were so much more than the atrocities of Hitler.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars extraordinairy
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 24, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    When in London last month I read two newspaper reviews of In Our Hearts We Were Giants by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, and felt intrigued to read it.
    My copy was published in 2004, so I think it must recently have been reissued. Beginning in Transylvania in 1923, it tells the true story of the seven Ovitz siblings, two male and five female, who were all dwarves.
    Drawing on the musical tradition in their family they developed a popular stage show, and were famous in Eastern Europe until deported to Auschwitz in 1944, principally because they were Jewish, though of course Nazi ideology also reviled those who are physically different.
    They were saved from the certainty of the gas chambers by the infamous Chief Physician of Auschwitz Dr Josef Mengele, who was excited to have them as test subjects for his scientifically extremely dubious, and often hideously cruel experiments.
    Thanks to his patronage they were afforded more comfort and privileges than were most of the minority of detainees who were allowed to live, yet at the expense of being poked, probed and drained of blood again and again and again, and subjected to other procedures amounting to torture, as well as being all too aware of the horrors taking place around them.
    Miraculously they all survived, with the help of fully grown family members incarcerated with them, also under Mengeles protection, as he was bumblingly searching for genetic clues to the origins of dwarfism.
    They moved to Israel, reprised their stage act for a few years, and the last of them passed away in 2001.
    There's much more in the book than I have time to mention here : It's very well written and researched, and a moving and extraordinairy story.
    Quite unlike any other book I've ever read, and one that will stay with me.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book!
    Reviewed in Canada on July 26, 2015
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    Amazing book !! held me right from the beginning, if your interested in the Holocaust and stories of survival then you will like this book.
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  • Edna85
    4.0 out of 5 stars Very insightful, but some mistakes
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 20, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This book is great for anybody with an interest in the Holocaust. It gives a detailed account of seven dwarfs who survived Auschwitz, as well a few of their family members who did not have dwarfism. The Ovitz family were medically experimented on by Dr Megele during their time in Auschwitz and although these medical experiments were gruesome and degrading the writers show how because of their dwarfism, and Megele's fascination with experimenting on dwarfs, the Ovitz were saved from the gas chambers.

    I found the book very easy to read and learnt a lot from it. It provides a good biographcial account of the Ovitz family, including interview snippets and photographs, which mostly focuses on their time in Auschwitz. The book is well researched and very detailed.

    As this book was written by two average sized people their attitudes towards dwarfism differ significnatly from somebody such as myself who is a dwarf. Dwarfism is not a tragedy and dwarfs do have a normal life expectancy, despite what is said in the book. When I read this book it was obvious that the writers had their own opinions of dwarfism which was not very accurate.
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  • S
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good read.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 25, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    This was an interesting book to read about the life of the dwarfs, before, during, and after the war. It tells of their story in a notorious concentration camp and how they survived because of the doctors fascination with them.
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