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“Although I had read other books by people who survived...”

written by rebecca32748 on 26/04/2009

Good Points
Superbly written. Very well-rounded in its scope as the author describes what happened to Jewry (and to the European gentiles) not only in her hometown of Somorja, but also throughout the entire Czechoslavakian region from which she comes.

Bad Points
It ended too soon. I wasn't ready to take leave of Elli. I wanted to become her friend.

General Comments
Although I had read other books by people who survived the Holocaust, I found Coming of Age in the Holocaust to be by far the most difficult.

The difficulty lay in my own limited ability to absorb the horrors that Mrs. Bitton-Jackson recounted in sharp detail. I would read a few pages or paragraphs, sometimes only a few lines. Then I had to lay the book down and work my way through the experience she had just described. Never have I been so immersed in a true, first-person account of tragedy, outrage, and fear as I was while I lived those days in 1944-45 with her. Never have I suffered while reading a personal account as I did while reading this book. Mrs. Bitton-Jackson tells her story with deep sensitivity, classic dignity, and sympathy for those whose experiences under the Nazis were even more devastating than her own. I was impressed that she reached out, both in actuality and, when open gestures of empathy were not possible, within her heart to others who suffered with her. Thank you, Mrs. Bitton-Jackson, for writing this grand book, for being willing to draw up memories you likely wish you could forget forever to enrich the lives of your readers and increase our understanding and neighborliness to those around us.