Book Review: Surviving the Angel of Death by Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Rojany Buccieri

I don’t think I am going to review this book as such, butmore discuss it as I don’t feel that you can review this kind of book.

Eva Mozes Kor was just ten years old when she arrived in Auschwitz. While her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, she and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man known as the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele. Subjected to sadistic medical experiments, she was forced to fight daily for her and her twin’s survival. In this incredible true story written for young adults, readers learn of a child’s endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.

The book also includes an epilogue on Eva’s recovery from this experience and her remarkable decision to publicly forgive the Nazis. Through her museum and her lectures, she has dedicated her life to giving testimony on the Holocaust, providing a message of hope for people who have suffered, and working for causes of human rights and peace.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surviving-Angel-Death-Mengele-Auschwitz/dp/1933718579

I bought this book from the little bookshop shop at AuschwitzII – Birkenau. Whilst we were walking around and both Marysia and I had decidedwe wanted to purchase a book before we left so we could read a little bit moreabout what had happened at Auschwitz.

World War 2 and everything that happened during the war hasalways interested me and was the main part of my history lessons at schoolwhich really captured my interest.

I hadn’t read or learnt a lot about Dr Mengele before visitingAuschwitz. I can vaguely recall hearing the name crop up in a few articles, butI never knew the extent of the horrific things he did.

The tour guide had mentioned Eva and her sister Miriam a fewtimes whilst showing our group around Auschwitz and the name stuck in my mind andI wanted to remember to look them up once we had left. However, whilst lookingin the book shop I cam across her book and decided that the best way tounderstand what happened was through Eva’s words herself.

I started reading this book when I came back from Poland andI read it very quickly and consists of approximately 135 pages, so is arelatively short book. I would have said it is mainly targeted towards youngadults.

 The way that thisbook is written means you can really picture what Eva and her sister Miriamwent through. The book really brings to life the horrific things that peopleendured whilst trying to survive living in Auschwitz from the minute the arrived,and even how Eva has dealt with what happened to her since she left Auschwitz. Itis hard, really hard, to comprehend how someone could be that evil to do thethings the victims of the Holocaust endured.

I think the book is also brought to life by the photographsthat are included showing Eva’s family meaning you can really picture them throughoutthe book.

I would recommend reading this book as it gives you a muchbetter understanding of horrific things Dr Mengele did to the twins in Auschwitz.I also think that it is important that we remind ourselves how horrific the holocaustwas so that it is never repeated.