Review Detail

What worked: Powerful narrative about two Jewish friends and their experiences during the Holocaust. In 1944 Rubi is picked up and thrown into a prisoner camp. He tries to escape, but when captured is sent to concentration camps during WWII. His last one is the infamous Auschwitz camp. This is his story of how he not only survived but escaped to tell about the horrors of the camps.

Gerta's family flees from Slovakia to Hungary and lives under different names to hide their Jewish identity. Gerta wants to help but even Hungary can't hide her for too long. The pressure from the Nazis increases and so does Gerta's fears of being rounded up and sent to the camps.

The audiobook descriptions of the two Jewish friends who experienced firsthand family, friends, and themselves being sent to the Nazi camps in Europe are gut-wrenching. Rubi's determination to not only live but to tell of the Nazi atrocities that happened in the concentration camps is read in such vivid detail. My grandfather fought in WWII and I grew up hearing stories of the horrific actions of what happened during the Holocaust. One of my friends encountered a Jewish Holocaust survivor when visiting NYC in the early 1980s and that woman said how important it was for her to share her story so that others would never forget. Rubi's story peels back how some tried to hide what was going on in Europe in the 1940s and shows the horrors that some committed against those they deemed subhuman.

Hearing the audiobook version of this non-fiction book makes the story even more powerful with its important message of never forgetting. Totally recommend for Holocaust studies.