A Lucky Child: Review and Giveaway!

 

Wow! Sometimes you get books that just hit you and Lucky Child is one of those for me. The author, Thomas Buergenthal, and his mother, survived Auschwitz. They were Germans who moved east as Hitler came into power. First they were confined to a ghetto, then sent to work camps, and finally to Auschwitz. Thomas would have been too young to survive the selection process that usually took place at the train station, but given that they were transported from a forced labor camp rather than from their homes, their train skipped that step. Once there, more luck kept him with his father and out of the gas chambers. Eventually they were separated and while Thomas survived the death march out of Auchwitz and live to see liberation, his father died a few weeks before the camp where he was sent was liberated.

Eventually after the war he was reunited with his mother and eventually came to the US where he became an attorney and later, a judge at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. He has spent his life pursuing human rights for all people.

His story is a testament to the power of love over hate. His parents' love for him, as well as the care they showed for others for whom they did not have to care, protected Thomas in those camps. After the war instead of being filled with hate for the Germans, he lived in Germany and made friends. He said that he thinks chosing not to hate is one thing that has allowed him to overcome this trauma in his life and live a normal life.

Though ethnically Jewish, Beurgenthal's family did not practice the faith. After his mother's second husband died, he said that he was sure there was no God, because if there was, He wouldn't allow so much sorrow in their family. Despite that remark, I loved the book.

Buergenthal was a lucky boy to survive Auschwitz and if you are lucky, you can win a copy of his book. Anna Balasi at Hatchette Books is allowing me to hold a giveawy of five copies of this wonderful book. To enter, leave me a comment, with your email address. For a second entry, Blog about this contest. For even more entries, have your friends come and leave comments saying you sent them (and I'll give them an entry too if they ask for it). I'll pick five winners randomly April 24.