Description
“Why Me?”, an edited, easy-to-read youth version of Dad’s autobiography “Work gives freedom”. An excellent easy-to-read aid (teaching aid) in teaching about Anti-Semitism/Auschwitz/Holocaust and about concentration camps. The book has come about after the Swedish National Agency for Education’s investment with Läslyftet for teaching pedagogues. The reading lift means making texts in various teaching materials, regardless of subject, more accessible to young people. The book is an excellent basis for discussion before trips to Holocaust memorials, or simply an easier read (both in terms of text volume and as a description of everyday life) about a subject that can be perceived as difficult to absorb given the cruelty described by many other authors.
Saga –
“Why Me?” is a vivid homage paid to the author’s father, survivor of three concentration camps, and to the importance of passing on the history of the Holocaust. It’s first and foremost aimed at school students, and a minor – but nevertheless to me touching detail – is the author’s examples of the Nazi symbols that he found in school while working as a teacher. To me, it added a sense of contemporaneousness that would be present throughout the book, reinforced by the repeated question “Why me?”. While creating a very personal impression, it also prompts the reader – at least this reader – to think about all the victims, especially those who could have had children. The protagonist’s life repeatedly hangs by a thread, be it due to disease or the abuses suffered in the camps. One of the most horrible examples of the latter – at least to read about – was the Christmas “celebration” in Auschwitz, only to mention one of the episodes. Being a version of an eyewitness account, it is also a valuable historical “document”, interesting, for example, for its illumination of the Poles that worked in the camps and for the people of different nationalities that they imprisoned. In short, the book is most worthwhile to read for anybody interested in an authentic, personal war-account.