Konin: A Quest

This book took me a long time to read, not because it dragged but because I needed to absorb every fascinating detail and digest the cruelty the human race is capable of inflicting. But still this was an immensely satisfying read. The research was excellent; the story of the rise and fall of one Jewish community beautifully written; the description of all the people the author meets on his quest so vivid and the education I received in what it means to be a Jew illuminating. Memoir and modern history all rolled into one marvellously readable book

An incredibly emotional journey of a man looking to find his Jewish roots. He travels back to a town whose Jewish population was practically wiped out by the Nazis.

Finished it sometime before dawn (last night the 5th), followed directly after with the novel "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink. Both of which I am still digesting along with "Everything will be illuminated" - Safran Foer. I need sleep before I can write anything more..


Konin Jews were very proud of their library and the subject comes up many times in survivors accounts. There's a quote by Paul Johnson in his History of the Jews; "Pious Jews saw heaven as a vast library, with an archangel as the librarian", and I like that idea. Theo Richmond adds to it, "Hell has a library too. Two days after the Jews of Vilna were driven into the ghetto, they opened a library".




Don't know why I bother with using the update thingy...useless for show more correcting typos. Obviously I meant Ukraine, not Unkraine.


18.dec 2010 = found again, back on the to-read list.

Currently have misplaced this book somewhere...;( haven't finished it yet.

shelving it till it's found again. show less

TBR