![]() ![]() 16 color illus., photos, maps, and glossary. ![]() All Publishers Harper Collins Knopf Publishers Scribner Simon and Schuster. In a 2011 end-of-book interview, Weiss explains why it’s worth reading another Holocaust account: “Because it’s narrated in a half-childish way, it’s accessible and expressive, and I think it will help people to understand those times.” Indeed, an adolescent’s take on such horrors-accompanied by the adult Weiss’s paintings-is a chilling testament to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Personally signed by Helga Weiss and limited to only 800. Although readers know Weiss will be among the approximately 1% of children who survive the camp, the section covering the eve of the war’s end-when the SS race around with Weiss’s group of dying Jews in cattle cars to find an open extermination camp, but are blocked at every turn by advancing Allies-is still a breathtaking account of the fate to which she had resigned herself. Her writings describe both the torturous physical circumstances of daily life, as well as the psychological toll wrought by ceaseless anxiety, degradation, and survivor’s guilt. ![]() Weiss begins her diary as a frightened eight-year-old in a bomb shelter, wondering what the Czechoslovakian government means by the declaration of “mobilization.” The scene sets the tone of fear and confusion that will dominate her life for the next several years, the bulk of which she spends in the Jewish ghetto, Terezín. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |