Howard Reich

I found this book very meaningful. Thinking about the Holocaust and all that the author's parents, Elie Wiesel, and others must have endured to survive the attempted genocide of the Jewish people is unimaginable to me. For about a generation after the Holocaust, survivors did not want to share any of their experiences or their stories. Many never did. In this book, the author Howard Reich, a noted journalist for The Chicago Tribune since 1978, only explored this topic after he was assigned to interview Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel is a man whom I admired deeply for being able to communicate with others about his experiences. He felt that it was important to write in order to be a witness. He felt that stories such as his needed to be communicated to our descendants, not to change the world which he felt we could not, but to bear witness for those who perished. Wiesel talked about his own approach to this subject but always stated that his responses were his own and should not reflect his opinion of others.

I copied many meaningful passages from this book, and finally closed the book at its end very tearful as Elie Wiesel passed away at the age of eighty-seven. Elie Wiesel believed in hope and he believed that others should never be humiliated no matter the circumstance. This is a very profound and meaningful book. I hope others take away from it the inspiration which I did.… (más)