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HomeShop at BookSurgeBiography & AutobiographyPersonal MemoirsThrough the Eyes of the Child: Survival of the Holocaust |
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Ted Gushev Sep 05, 2007
" This story has touched me deeply. It tells, in stark fashion, an honest, child's account, of the horrors of the holocaust. Jackie, the main character, does not understand what is happening to him. To him it is normalcy. He bears no grudges but tries to survive, with the help of his brother, in the best way he can. He disregards fact and places his faith in a hope that will never come.
The story, though poignant, has tender moments. The historical details intertwined in the story are useful to provide the reader with a backdrop for easier reference.
Though there have no doubt been countless books written on the holocaust, Through the Eyes of a Child gave me the feeling of actually knowing the young Jackie. Feeling his innocence, his heartache, and his occasional joy. A bundle of human emotions, evoked and wrapped up in small child.
I recommend that anyone seeking information on the holocaust adds this book as a must-read.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Worth reading Jul 18, 2007
This is a work of engrossing honesty, a worthy contribution to the genre of Holocaust memorialization, and a testament to human resilience.
Mr. Veffer, who was only four when the war ended, was not in a camp, and has relatively few memories from the period. This does not mean, though, that the book is not about survival of the Holocaust. What it means, rather, is that we see that survival from an unexpected perspective: the bulk of the book, which treats Veffer's teenage years in postwar Europe, shows how his world is dominated and deformed by the event.
The book opens with the few scattered memories he has from the war years: here episodes that have nothing to do with history (for instance an accident in which he is burned with hot milk) are twined with those which do (the departure of his parents, later murdered in a camp). This mixture lends an especial poignancy to the recollections: the innocence of a child who cannot rank events in significance is amply manifest, and the poignancy is augmented by the starkness of his style.
As he grows older, the line of recollection becomes smoother and richer: we are thus witness, in style as well as in content, to Veffer's growing consciousness. It is here that the book really takes off: in the account of years spent being passed from aunt to aunt, culminating in a long sojourn with a family that does its duty by him while at the same time engaging in routine cruelty. We see a number of other children from this family grow up. Some of them are twisted to the breaking point, some, like Mr. Veffer, emerge with their humanity intact, but none is unaffected: none has grown up as he should.
This aftereffect of the Holocaust is what the book mainly explores. It does so without sentimentality or artificiality, and without heavy theoretical overlay.
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