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Title: Poignant, Mesmerising
Review: I have read holocaust stories before and am familar with the horrors. Where this stood out is the way the story of a son and fathers journey through the camps is told - detail is pared down and yet the images come strongly across. The brutality becomes normality, the prisoners dehumanised, ready to kill for a few crumbs. While the author was only 15 , he is forced to grow up quickly. The images of sons throwing their dead fathers bodies from the train. Son killing father to survive. The prisoners are not venerated as heroes. It is their sheer ordinariness and fraility that make this a powerful story. When you read this it reminds you of how we allow evil to live on. The people of Sighel ignored the warnings and were blind to what was happening. The world still has evil - read this and remember.
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