Michael Frank interviews Stella who is 98 years old. She was from Rhodes. tells life in Rhodes, transportation to concentration camps, Auschwitz, getting to America. Life in America. ( )

How rare and how significant to have an unknown universe revealed in a book. Stella Levi was a teen in the Juderia, the small ghetto in Rhodes, Greece, home to Jewish transplants from Spain for centuries, in the halcyon days before WWII. The youngest child in a large family, she both relished and resented the tight confines of the sunny island, and kept a bag packed so that she could flee to Italy and a classical education when she was old enough to leave. In 1923, the island was taken over by Italy, which brought outside culture and expanded the tight boundaries of the Juderia and of Stella’s own life. In July of 1944, the Nazis put all the 1,650 Juderia residents on boats and trains to Auschwitz. The motivation of the Nazis, to take out such a small insignificant group of Jews from the tiny island, so close to the end of the war they were losing, is still unknown. Stella, her elder sister Renee, and a few other surviving Rhodeslis were transferred to remote forest work camps and were liberated by the Americans a year later. Stella survived, but never thrived, never truly felt at home anywhere, not in the US and not in Rhodes, where she eventually returns. Her dissatisfaction with herself, her feelings not of survivor's guilt, but shame that she had never locked on a plan or an ambition, never was able to study or to find a career she relished, is startling when you consider what it took for her to live through her time under the Nazis. Later in life, she becomes involved with the Centro Primo Levi in NYC and is able to find purpose. Writer Michael Frank meets Stella in 2015, as he is interested in her life in the Juderia, and they comes to enjoy their Sundays spent together, as Stella's story unwinds. You sense how cathartic it is for Stella to share the horror and her personal dissatisfaction with a new friend, and the two become close and Frank becomes responsible for opening up Stella's Juderia to the world. Artist Maira Kalman's illustrations are also illuminative, if not too few in number. Holocaust books, fiction and non, have become a genre of their own, but this exceptional biography uses it as a backdrop for an interrupted life. ( )

The format that the writer used to tell this amazing true story is very creative. To see how the relationship evolved and expanded between the writer and subject over time was inspiring. The writer allowed the story to unfold at just the right pace with the subject as she was ready to reveal more and more. I am currently interviewing my 90 year old cousin who lived thru the blitz in London in WWII. I can only hope to achieve the level of depth of story and impact that the author was able to connect with. ( )

I read a hardcover edition and enjoyed reading a “real” book. I’ve been reading a lot of e-editions. I bring only paper books with me when I’m out and about and I like being able to always have a book with me.

This is a good addition to Holocaust literature. I particularly appreciated Stella’s description of how and why women often fared better than men throughout the ordeal.

My favorite parts though were learning about life on Rhodes before the deportation.

There were parts of the story that took place in NYC that I also found fascinating.

The part of the story that is about the camps was relatively brief but for me offered some details new to me, even though I’ve read many Holocaust books.

I applaud the inclusion of all sorts of memories during the various times and settings and how all sorts of emotions were felt, humor included.

Stella annoyed me when she was cryptic and in interviews instead of answering would say that is for another day, something that occurred a lot but I guess it’s the author I’m irked with because he could have just written what she did actually tell him vs. including what she said she wouldn’t tell him or wouldn’t tell him yet.

Stella has had an interesting life and in many ways was a remarkable girl and is a remarkable woman but I think I might have enjoyed this book more if its focus had not been on only/mostly Stella. If it had been written about the Jews of Rhodes and what had happened to all of them perhaps I’d have found the narrative more compelling. That said, hearing this story from one person’s point of view had its advantages.

“I do believe that as we travel through life we become a different person in every situation, or context, or phase.”

A useful selected bibliography is included in the back of the book.

3-1/2 stars ( )

I know that technically I'm reviewing the book and not Stella's experiences, but it's hard for me to separate the two. I feel as if I'm rating her life. Doesn't quite feel right. There is no way I can read anything on the Holocaust and not wonder how people can be so inhumane. Almost an entire country looked away and let it happen. Maybe a warning we here in the states need to take to heart

Reading about Stella and her family, the Jewish population in Rhodes, the closeness, their lives, was so interesting. Makes what happens afterwards even more heartbreaking, if that's even possible. She didn't want to talk about her life in the camps, but at nearly 100, and due to the authors continuing interest, she eventually does so. She was in many camps, many of which I had never heard. I found a commonality, besides the horrors evidenced, between Stella's experience and those of Frankel and Primo Levy's experiences in camps. At wars end when the Americans were making their way liberating camps, a very I'll Frankel and Levy, lives were saved because they were in the camps infirmary. Stella's was saved because though ill, she was sent away from the infirmary. The next day, all those in the infirmary were killed. Fate or luck if one can even use that word. ( )