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A review by rachaelreads92
Last Stop Auschwitz: My Story of Survival from Within the Camp by Eliazar de Wind
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
I have read a lot of Holocaust memoirs, and this is a little bit different to others that I have read. I think the main reason that it is different is that it was written during the time the author was in the camp. Therefore, it doesn't have any hindsight, it doesn't have any additional information that he wouldn't of had at the time, it has all of his thoughts that were happening right then and there. Most, if not all, of the memoirs that I have read about the Holocaust were written several to many years after the end of World War II.
Something that is a really unique about this book it is actually even though it's a memoir it's written in the third person. The author found that he simply could not write about these painful memories in the first person he had to use a character that he invented so he could record everything that happened . Everythinng that happened to this character, happened to Eddie but in order for him to get these thoughts down on paper he had to use this third person narrative.
This book follows Eddy’s journey from Westerbork (a Dutch transit camp), to Auschwitz I, to the liberation of the Auschwitz by the Red Army, to his volunteering in the Red Army as a doctor.
Eddy de Wind was a newly qualified doctor (in fact he was one of of the last Jewish doctors qualified during the war in the Netherlands) when in 1943 he volunteered to go to Westerbork, which was a Dutch transit camp, in hopes to save his mother. However, when he arrived at the camp he had discovered that his mother had already been sent to Auschwitz for labour. Even though he had been promised that he would be spared from transports by the Jewish Council , he was eventually sent to Auschwitz with his wife, Friedel. Friedel and Eddy were fortunate enough to spend most of their time in Auschwitz in close proximity in Auschwitz. This really is a love story about how Eddie survived for Friedel. He talks about how he would've given up on life if she wasn't there for him to survive for.
Really lovely book and I highly recommend it!
Something that is a really unique about this book it is actually even though it's a memoir it's written in the third person. The author found that he simply could not write about these painful memories in the first person he had to use a character that he invented so he could record everything that happened . Everythinng that happened to this character, happened to Eddie but in order for him to get these thoughts down on paper he had to use this third person narrative.
This book follows Eddy’s journey from Westerbork (a Dutch transit camp), to Auschwitz I, to the liberation of the Auschwitz by the Red Army, to his volunteering in the Red Army as a doctor.
Eddy de Wind was a newly qualified doctor (in fact he was one of of the last Jewish doctors qualified during the war in the Netherlands) when in 1943 he volunteered to go to Westerbork, which was a Dutch transit camp, in hopes to save his mother. However, when he arrived at the camp he had discovered that his mother had already been sent to Auschwitz for labour. Even though he had been promised that he would be spared from transports by the Jewish Council , he was eventually sent to Auschwitz with his wife, Friedel. Friedel and Eddy were fortunate enough to spend most of their time in Auschwitz in close proximity in Auschwitz. This really is a love story about how Eddie survived for Friedel. He talks about how he would've given up on life if she wasn't there for him to survive for.
Really lovely book and I highly recommend it!