By Thomas Buergenthal
Little, Brown, and Company
Today, I am honoring one of the best books I read in 2009, A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy. Everyone should read this book. Everyone.
Thomas Buergenthal's story of his miraculous survival from the Jewish Ghettos to the labor camps to the orphanage before reuniting with his mother (not to mention the deadly marches in the middle of winter) will have you in tears. At times, I had to put the book down because I was so upset at the actions of the Nazi's and Gestapo's; their behavior was so twisted and incomprehensible. I mean how? How could someone inflict such torture on innocent people? Innocent children? The release of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourius Basterds shortly after reading Lucky Child, made me wish that it was a true story. Much like Elie Wiesel's Night, Buergenthal's equally moving story is an important read. The Holocaust was such a horrible mark on human history, one you hope would have taught us many lessons; but even today, violations of human rights and genocide still occur. Buergenthal's personal experience led him to fight for human rights and currently sits as a Judge on the International Court of Justice in Hague. READ IT!
