Our Holocaust
by: Amir Gutfreund; translated by Jessica Cohen
Published by: The Toby Press
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Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhar
Israeli prize winner Amir Gutfreund debuts with an astonishing chronicle of two young children's abilities and inabilities to understand what happened "over there" in
Our Holocaust.
The author takes the stage as a fictional character along with Effi, the only other child on Katznelson Street in Kiryat Haim. As members of the second-and-a-half generation to the Shoah (the Holocaust), they try to fit the pieces of the puzzle together--from the bits and pieces they are given--because they are not "Old Enough" to comprehend.
Amir is the more questioning of two, begging for stories and information. Fifty years may have passed but the Shoah's survivors are still haunted. As the children age and become "Old Enough" to learn the truth, Amir becomes obsessed with learning more. He interviews the family--everyone who survived is now a relative, not so much as by blood as shared experiences--and collects their stories.
One of the more unusual characters is Attorney Perl, not for what he remembers or what he experienced in the camps. He, too, keeps records. Not about the atrocities, but about what happened to those who committed them. What happened to the Nazis after liberation? Ask Attorney Perl. Behind the wall of his hardware store is a wall of little drawers. Amir at first believes they contain the store's inventory, but when he's finally "Old Enough," he learns that the drawers are crammed with index cards full of notations, sentences, releases, and deaths of Nazi party members.
Our Holocaust takes readers on two voyages. One is through the minds of the survivors and their children, and another is through the camps. It takes readers through the ghettos where the Nazis perform the "Aktions" and the "Selektions" of who stays, goes, and who dies on the spot.
Our Holocaust is not an easy read. It's frightening. It's horrific. It puts faces on the people in the documentaries that have aired over the years.
Armchair Interviews says: While Our Holocaust is not an easy read, it's a must-read to even begin to understand exactly what happened "over there."
From our armchair to yours...
