I no longer remember the name of the book, not because it was forgettable…just the opposite, over 50 years later, I still recall the disturbing content it held.
I have always been a big time reader. For some strange reason, when I was a kid, I chose a book about World War II and the Concentration Camps.
The only thing I can think of is it was curiosity or seeking some understanding.
My dad had a couple of clients that were survivors of those camps. The wife became blind as a result of malnutrition. I never heard her husband speak a word. My dad said that he was severely traumatized by the event. (very understandable).
I’m guessing that I wanted to understand things.
The book I chose ended up having some very descriptive passages of things that happened in the camps and when they started talking about the kids…I lost it and quit reading the book.
Years later, I was at a Yom HaShoah event where they were reading names of Jewish people who had died either in the camps or as a result of the Nazi regime. The list I ended up with was the babies and the kids.
I never made it through the list!
They say (whoever THEY are) that if you take part in a Yom HaShoah event, you will never be the same again. THEY weren’t lying!
To this day, I cannot read anything to do with much of what took place during that war.
A fan of Daniel Silva, his main character in his books is named Gabriel Alon – one of the world’s prestigious are restorers and a member of the Israeli secret service – who is the son of a survivor. His mother was in her teens. In one of the books, Gabriel is reading her testimony of what happened. The first time I read the book, I forced myself to read that chapter. The second time I read it, I skipped that chapter. I couldn’t do it again.
This one was disturbing to write.