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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very accessible & intimate account of surviving Auschwitz, 10 Mar 2005
This review is from: From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back, 1926-96 (Library of Holocaust Testimonies) (Paperback)
This incredible account is written with such innocence and simplicity that the horror of the Holocaust is brought home with surprising force. Erika's survival is an astonishing series of coincidences. She is one of the few material witnesses of the Auschwitz atrocities to have survived, having been a so-called "Secretary of Death" whose job it was to register the names of the dead. After condemning human nature by exposing its darkest side, the book then manages to restore hope by explaining how Erika has managed to put her terrifying experiences behind her and create a happy and successful life for herself. If you have never read a book about the Holocaust because you don't like history books, or because you don't want to be preached at, or because you think it has nothing to do with you - YOU MUST READ THIS. It is the most approachable, non-judgmental and affecting Holocaust book I have ever read.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Katie is my mother, 18 Nov 2006
This review is from: From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back, 1926-96 (Library of Holocaust Testimonies) (Paperback)
A story written from the heart full of nostalgia for a world of peace lost in the Nazi crematoria of the 1940s. A story of pain, harrowing nightmares and agonies in the name of madness our world has been experiencing since its very beginning. Erika's life in Auschwitz is a lesson for us all: never again!
On pages 159-160 of the book, the woman (Katie) Erika is referring to is my wonderful mother. I played with the little barrel as a child but never lived in the agony of that war. My mother and Erika are very good friends brought together by this little barrel and by different memories of the darkest times lived during WWII.
Antigone Karapetsa
London
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A grim reminder, 24 Nov 2003
This review is from: From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back, 1926-96 (Library of Holocaust Testimonies) (Paperback)
Edmund Burke said: "For the triumph of evil it is only necessary that good men do nothing." This book is a grim reminder of that truth. The back cover tells us exactly what we will find. "Before the Second World War there was a thriving Jewish community of some 50,000 people in Thessaloniki, Greece. In 1943, under Nazi occupation, virtually the entire community was deported to Auschwitz extermination camp. That Erika Amariglio and several members of her family survived is due only to a series of coincidences, which started with the fact that they were on the first transport to Auschwitz, and of the 2,800 people on their train they were the only ones who spoke fluent German. Erika Amariglio's story covers the period before the war in Thessaloniki, the German occupation and the gradual tightening of restrictions, the transportation, the two-and-a-half years that she and members of her family spent in Auschwitz, the long death march back to Germany, their escape to Yugoslavia, and the eventual reunion of the family in Greece. It concludes with the author's return to Auschwitz many years later as a delegate to an international conference on the Holocaust. " Creating a better world for our children is not just the nourishing of good but it is also the crushing of evil. It is horrible to be reminded what evil men can do if we just stand aside and pretend not to see. Unfortunately we need to be reminded periodically of this sad truth.
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