4.5 Stars... Sobering True Stories Involving the Holocaust
Customer Rating: 
I knew very little, if anything, about the book or its Polish author. What captured my attention was the subtitle of the book "And Other True Stories".
"The Woman from Hamburg and Other True Stories" (260 pages) brings us 12 stories that in one way or another are connected to the Holocaust. Sometimes the story will be a straightforward account of a Holocaust survivor. At other times, the story ends up in places you'd never thought. For example, "The Back of the Eye", the longest of the 12 stories, initially concentrates on Stanislaw W., a concentration camp survivor, but eventually shifts to his son Stefan, who joined the Red Army Faction and is serving a lifetime sentence in Germany for his involvement in a brutal abduction with killings.
I obviously cannot speak for Hahha Krall's original writing style in Polish, but in this translation it comes across with a very peculiar style. It is dry, at times emotionnaly removed, yet very observant. Writing about a young Jewish boy who fears he might haven eaten non-kosher food: "'You're only eight years old', his aunt consoled him. 'After you are bar mitzvah, God will forgive you everything'. He calculated that he could sin for five more years. Unfortunately, the war began before his bar mitzvah; God forgave him nothing."
The author does a great job in keeping you guessing where the stories will take you. While I lost interest in 2 of the 12 stories, hence no 5 star rating, this book is not only a great read, but of course also a reminder of the incredible horrors of the Holocaust. Highly recommended.
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