Whisper1 first thread in this specific group topic

Hi, I am Linda, a member of the 75 challenge group since it began in 2008. I read a lot of books regarding the holocaust. I join this group in the hope of finding some books that I haven't read as yet. A big thank you to Kerry (avatiakh), also a member of the 75 challenge group, for steering me in this direction.

Recently, I watched a documentary on the ABC channel. The moderator spoke from a holocaust site in the Ukraine. It was well done and, interesting to hear the voice become shaky when he was touched deeply, emotionally. I know I could not visit a camp without crying profusely. The director of the Holocaust museum located in America spoke profoundly of the need never to forget.

Hi Linda, I don't know if you remember me, but we used to occasionally bump into one another. I'm glad you've joined this group. I hope you find some impactful reading. Do you remember the name of the documentary? Was it No Place on Earth? I saw that one when it came out.

Erika's Story by Ruth Vander Zee with illustrations of Roberto Innocenti

This is a true story told by the author when she met the woman in the book. She and her husband were in Rothenberg, German after a tornado ripped through this lovely village.

An elderly man noted the destruction reminded him of the last allied attack of the war. A woman sitting next to them noted her name as Erika and proceeded to tell her story. Here are the stark facts:

Erika was born sometime in 1944.
She does not know her birthdate, nor her birthname.
Continuing with the information that was lacking from her history is the fact that she does not know her birthplace.
She may have brothers or sisters, but does not know that is true.
She was rescued from the holocaust by parents who made a soul-wrenching decision to throw her from the train carrying the family to an unknown concentration camp.

Innocenti's stark black and white illustrations then graphically show the terror of deportment, people herded like cattle, a door locked, then opened as a small baby in a pink blanket is thrown from the train. The pink blanket is starkly colored against the brown-tones of the train track and a few people watching the train pass.

Here is another fact:
Someone bravely risked their life in saving hers.
She was fed, clothed, given a birthdate and a name.

She married at twenty-one
She had three children.

Starkly, the book ends with Erika's statement:

"It was once said that my people would be as many as the stars in the heavens. Six million of those stars fell from 1933-1945."

Noting that while every star represented a family torn apart, her life continued and now her children are the roots that grow.

Starkly dramatic both in fact and the way in which color is used to represent hope and life.

This is a book that will remain with me for a long time. The Star of David is a cut out on the first page, setting the tone accompanying the graphic image of people herded into a train, nameless people whose lives were cut short, but for one.

Hi Linda, thanks for joining our group. That's a book I'll look out for, it reminded me of The Most Precious of Cargoes: A Tale by Jean-Claude Grumberg which is also about a baby thrown from a train.

Today was spent reading All But My Life by Gerda Weissman Klein. I highly recommend this one! She was 18 when Hitler's Nazi's went through her lovely, small town of Bielitz, Poland. She is a superb writer who writes of her experiences as she was moved from one camp to another. The fascinating thing about this book is that while she paints a picture of the horrors of her confinements, she also stresses that there were good people along the way who were duty bound, but found a way to be kind.

An author of five books, this one received many awards.

I highly recommend this well-written, in-depth portrait of life under Hitler's rule.

>5 Whisper1: I liked that one too, Linda.

Thanks for noting that Lisa. I was truly amazed that she made it through all the bitter cold, snowy marches, watching so many die. And, somehow she lived through it until liberation.

Do you have other books you would recommend?

>7 Whisper1: You can check my Holocaust thread, I have the books I read in the last few years listed at the top with how many stars I gave them. You might like A Delayed Life and No Pretty Pictures. This year I read the excellent Cold Crematorium, written with a journalist's eye for detail, and Under the Domim Tree, about life in a children's village in Israel, most were orphaned in the Holocaust and lived in its shadow.

Thanks Lisa. I'll check that thread. I did read No Pretty Pictures. I will add Delayed Life, Cold Crematorium, and Under the Domim Tree.