Innocence Lost - A Childhood Stolen
About the Book:
On July 14th, 1942, me, my mother, father, precious little brother, Chaim Kabliski, Aunt Ania, Uncle Addam and my cousins, Adiya and Aaron, were all forcibly evicted from their beautiful apartment in Warsaw by heartless, well-armed German soldiers with snarling dogs and crammed into a cattle wagon along with eighty other suffering souls.
When we arrived at a camp called Auschwitz/Birkenau, they were all murdered in gas chambers, burned in ovens like trash and their ashes unceremoniously spread like fertilizer on a nearby field. Only through a miracle did I survive. I want you to hear my story so the world will never forget. Those horrible people may have stolen my childhood, but they can’t steal my memories. So, let me begin.
My Comments:
I found this story hard to believe. The introductory material says the author talked to an Auschwitz survivor and based this novel on her story, so I don't know how much is true and how much is not. Basically the little girl in the story was pulled out of the line to the gas chamber by an SS doctor who had recently lost a daughter her age. He took her into his home, and when the camp was abandoned, he took her with him when he fled. Eventually he ends up as a Catholic priest. She marries and moves to Israel.
The story was compelling at times but it is a self-published book and it shows. The writing is not of a professional caliber. Oral histories can be fascinating and this one shows the ending of the war through the eyes of one of the villain class. It shows an unlikely alliance between an SS physician who hates Jews, and a young Jewish girl.
I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley. Grade: B-
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