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sonialusiveira's review against another edition
4.0
Harrowing memoir of resilience, perseverance and the importance of family and its shared love and strength.
Isabella was 23 years old when she was deported to Auschwitz along with her mother, four sisters and a brother whilst her father was struggling in another continent to get visa for his family to leave Hungary for the safety in the US that he got too late.
It is a very painful memoir to read. We can feel the author’s pain, and anger, in every sentence of the book. And as the title said, the story is presented in fragments of life, struggles, torture, and the inhumane acts in concentration camps during the Nazi regime.
Isabella was 23 years old when she was deported to Auschwitz along with her mother, four sisters and a brother whilst her father was struggling in another continent to get visa for his family to leave Hungary for the safety in the US that he got too late.
It is a very painful memoir to read. We can feel the author’s pain, and anger, in every sentence of the book. And as the title said, the story is presented in fragments of life, struggles, torture, and the inhumane acts in concentration camps during the Nazi regime.
beereads88's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review against another edition
5.0
Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley
As I start to write this review, the Internet is somewhat imploding because of a comic book. No, the character didn’t come out as guy, and no I don’t really want to talk about because it is dumb. But then you sit and think, and you have to wonder if some people never read books like this one.
Today, you would think everyone knows about the Holocaust and that we pretty much don’t have to educate people about it. And then you get smacked in the face by, to use polite langue, idiots. You have Holocaust Denials. You have idiots who know there was a Holocaust but think it was one the Jews were killing everyone. You have comparisons of people like Obama to Hitler. You just have to wonder about what people are learning about history that even in the modern world where information about the Holocaust is readily available in a wide variety of sources, why people are so filled with stupidity.
Leitner’s memoir isn’t so much a memoir in the traditional sense of the word. If you have read Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After, Leitner’s work is much like that memoir. It is more of conveying of memoir. While Leitner isn’t as poetic as Delbo, her book is just as compelling. In part, this is because Delbo was imprisoned because her involvement with the Resistance, and Leitner was Jewish.
Leitner’s memoir starts with the deportment from the Ghetto and follows her experiences during the war. The free form and very short chapters in which the story is told make it all the more compelling because there is a sense of pain that is viscerally felt by the reader. Leitner conveys more in simple words than other writers do. It is this aspect of the book that makes this volume essential reading. The sense of pain is even given more recent context in the afterword by Leitner’s husband.
Maybe if this book was assigned more we would not have to deal with idiots.
As I start to write this review, the Internet is somewhat imploding because of a comic book. No, the character didn’t come out as guy, and no I don’t really want to talk about because it is dumb. But then you sit and think, and you have to wonder if some people never read books like this one.
Today, you would think everyone knows about the Holocaust and that we pretty much don’t have to educate people about it. And then you get smacked in the face by, to use polite langue, idiots. You have Holocaust Denials. You have idiots who know there was a Holocaust but think it was one the Jews were killing everyone. You have comparisons of people like Obama to Hitler. You just have to wonder about what people are learning about history that even in the modern world where information about the Holocaust is readily available in a wide variety of sources, why people are so filled with stupidity.
Leitner’s memoir isn’t so much a memoir in the traditional sense of the word. If you have read Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After, Leitner’s work is much like that memoir. It is more of conveying of memoir. While Leitner isn’t as poetic as Delbo, her book is just as compelling. In part, this is because Delbo was imprisoned because her involvement with the Resistance, and Leitner was Jewish.
Leitner’s memoir starts with the deportment from the Ghetto and follows her experiences during the war. The free form and very short chapters in which the story is told make it all the more compelling because there is a sense of pain that is viscerally felt by the reader. Leitner conveys more in simple words than other writers do. It is this aspect of the book that makes this volume essential reading. The sense of pain is even given more recent context in the afterword by Leitner’s husband.
Maybe if this book was assigned more we would not have to deal with idiots.
ubergusterfan's review against another edition
5.0
Harrowing.
No matter how many accounts of Auschwitz I read, no matter how many times I read the words of those who survived, the impact is still immense. How quickly these individuals forgot life outside the pain. Outside the death. Only 9 months did she spend in Auschwitz, and yet it affected every moment of her life after that. And yet this is a a story about life in spite of death. Suffering doesn't kill us. This is the true message of this book. Only death can kill us. Absent death, we have life. Isabella suffered meaningless, and yet she lived. No matter what they took away from her and her family, they lost. She lived. Two of her sisters lived. She brought new life into the world. She suffered, but it did not destroy her. Her pain did not kill her. She lived, because of her words, her memory lives. The memory of her mother lives. The memory of her sisters lives. Life overcomes death.
No matter how many accounts of Auschwitz I read, no matter how many times I read the words of those who survived, the impact is still immense. How quickly these individuals forgot life outside the pain. Outside the death. Only 9 months did she spend in Auschwitz, and yet it affected every moment of her life after that. And yet this is a a story about life in spite of death. Suffering doesn't kill us. This is the true message of this book. Only death can kill us. Absent death, we have life. Isabella suffered meaningless, and yet she lived. No matter what they took away from her and her family, they lost. She lived. Two of her sisters lived. She brought new life into the world. She suffered, but it did not destroy her. Her pain did not kill her. She lived, because of her words, her memory lives. The memory of her mother lives. The memory of her sisters lives. Life overcomes death.
alittlebitshelfish's review against another edition
4.0
I’m surprised this isn’t as recommended as Night is by Elie Wiesel. It was definitely moving and horrifying.
whatsnonfiction's review against another edition
4.0
A very short but incredibly powerful memoir of a young woman's nightmarish memories of Auschwitz, structured in short vignettes and often in a stream-of-consciousness style. It's emotional and affecting to read not only her descriptions of the experiences, but to grasp the palpable anger so present in her words. Even from her secure postwar life in New York, she admits that she'll always remain fragmented. Not surprisingly, reading what she and her family went through. But I loved the writing style, it's as if she was able to collect diary entries of what she would've written at the time, and the way each vignette flits quickly to the next underscores the thoughts that appear throughout - is this the end? Was that enough? Is what's coming better or worse? Nothing is permanent, everything is fleeting. It's amazing that something so simply written can be so powerful and haunting.
Despite its brevity, it's not always an easy read, to put it lightly. But it certainly feels like something very important to know. A meaningful addition to the canon of Holocaust literature.
I received an advance copy of the new ebook edition courtesy of the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Despite its brevity, it's not always an easy read, to put it lightly. But it certainly feels like something very important to know. A meaningful addition to the canon of Holocaust literature.
I received an advance copy of the new ebook edition courtesy of the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
alittlebitshelfish's review
4.0
I’m surprised this isn’t as recommended as Night is by Elie Wiesel. It was definitely moving and horrifying.
torrie_reads's review
5.0
Heart-breaking and full of honest hatred. This memoir illustrates the burden they had to endure long after liberation.
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