I truly
Lament is a unique and remarkable compilation of 27 Holocaust stories. Each story explores different points of view,
concepts and theses all corresponding to the Holocaust. The stories take the reader on a deep,
psychological and profound emotional journey into the stark reality of what it
was like to live, exist or to die in the inhumane conditions of the
concentration camps run by the Nazis. In
the opening chapters the stories deal mostly with the plight of Jews in
concentration camps that have no choice to endure the cruel and unjustified
punishments of the prison guards who would decide their own type of weapon as
they saw fit. Many of the men were
ordered to dig trenches for hours on end, often resulting in their death as the
Nazi ideology behind this cruel task was to wear the men out to a point where
they evolved into Muselmänner (the stage before the ovens). Existence in the
camps was short, nasty and brutish without meaning. The Nazis kept the men alive upon the barest
thread of existence, teased individuality out of them as they wanted the men to
loath themselves to their last dying moment.
Most vile of all the Nazis wanted the men to willingly go along with
their own extermination.
Perhaps the
most harrowing of all the stories is “Hummingbird” where a Holocaust survivor
tells us his own unique story at the age of 82. Part of him wants to live, and
a part of him doesn’t mind dying as his life was so consumed by his existence
in the camps that he doesn’t know what it was like to grow up without those
horrors. He is damaged in so many ways and feels his life is in transit as he
was made to slog through one camp to another in his younger years. He concludes
that he now wanders the earth as an old man in search of a planet and the only
reason he survived the camps was that his body desired to go on long after his
mind had given up.
Mathias B. Freese
has created a powerful thought-provoking work of fiction that cleverly examines
a number of diverse perspectives on the Holocaust through several different
writing styles, ranging from gothic, Utopian, romantic and chimerical. Each and every story will no doubt leave the
reader speechless as we follow the few survivors that managed to outlive the
brutality and starvation imposed by the Nazis, only to find their lives are
full of insecurities and there is no escape from the torment they once
suffered. All of which leads me to close
and agree that we will never be done with the Holocaust and this book is living
proof of that and I fully agree with other reviewers that it should be
mandatory reading for all.
My Ranking:
5 Stars
My Review
Sites:
http://walkerputsche.wordpress.com/http://catherineroseputsche.webs.com/
http://t.co/G0ExZgmlwc
https://twitter.com/Putsche73
Amazon and
Barnes and Noble
No comments:
Post a Comment