We Were the Lucky Ones

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
2017
Weight: 16 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating to Goodwill

It is no surprise that when you pick up a book about the Holocaust you will leave that book with a deep, dark, gut wrenching sickness.  It is impossible to truly grasp or imagine that many people being starved, tortured, and brutally murdered by their neighbors.  It is devastating and, no matter how much is written about it, makes no sense.  I have read the research and the studies showing that people everywhere are capable of this, and I believe it, but it just does not make sense.  The world is changing in so many scary ways.  There are countries all over the world going more conservative and being led by angry, shouting, womanizing leaders who have disgust for entire groups of people.  You never want to demean what people went through in World War II by comparing modern day situations to what happened then arbitrarily, but sometimes the mirrored experiences are frightening.  It is hard not to think of one when reading about the other. 

As a child, we were taught about the Holocaust with the idea that if we could learn about it we could ensure it would never happen again.  In college, my eyes were opened to other genocides happening in other countries.  I struggled to know what I could do as an American about Rawanda.  About Darfur.  Now, I am hearing the horror stories coming out of immigration detainment centers, and there has been an explosion of gun violence aimed at all people, but pointedly at the Jewish, the LGBTQ latina community, black people in their own churches.  Hatred is bubbling up in these very explosive and loud ways.  Meanwhile, our President is coming up with travel bans, transgender bans, insulting the disabled publicly, talking about sexually assaulting women openly.  We have placed yet another man accused of sexual assault in the highest court in our land. 

The very title of this book digs into your psyche.  You follow a whole family through the Holocaust, predominantly in Poland, and you get attached to them quickly.  They see terrible things and suffer in a variety of ways.  You see the woman digging a grave for herself and being told to dig one for her child as well.  The mother who cannot account for all her grown children and their children.  The grandfather who worked hard to build a life for himself and those he loves just to have it all stripped from him.  And yet, many of them make it out alive, and they are truly "the lucky ones."  Thinking of them as lucky is soul crushing in and of itself. 

This is a novel based on a real family, and it is reader friendly in that it is character driven and not bogged down with details.  I think that the style the author uses has made it to where people of varying ages and temperaments could pick it up, read it, and find themselves moved.  One thing I wonder when I read all of these books is when do you get out?  When is it too late?  There is a lot of talk about staying and fighting, but would you do that if you had a crystal ball and could see how bad it would get?

A Queer and Pleasant Danger

A Queer and Pleasant Danger: A Memoir  by Kate Bornstein
2012
Weight: 1.5 lbs
Method of Disposal: Leaving at Joe's in EAV

My dear friend, Harriet, bought me this book for my birthday before she flew back home to the U.K.
It was on my wish list--yeah yeah, I know I should not even have a wish list since I am trying to get rid of all my books.  It is hard though.  I do not want to only ready books from the 80's and 90's.  I need to have access to current information and literature.

I was excited to read it because I read some of Bornstein's other work in college and really enjoyed it and learned from it.  Gender Outlaw was my first and then I had to get The Gender Workbook, neither of which I am prepared to get rid of yet.

This memoir is, amongst other things, a letter to the author's daughter who she has not spoken to in 16 years.  Bornstein's need to communicate with her daughter and the obstacles that prevent it broke my heart from page one.  She tears into her life and exposes herself in every chapter.  We hear about her childhood, her father, and the experiences she had while realizing her transgender identity.  Then we are sucked into the strict, abusive world of Scientology, something I never knew about Bornstein before I read this book.  It exposes things I never knew, and I found it to be so interesting and, again, heartbreaking that it is the largest obstacle between Kate and her daughter.  She writes about BDSM, her eating disorder, her relationships, her sex life, the loss of her mother, the loss of her brother, loneliness, closeness.  It can get raw and some people may even think gritty, but it was so honest and so interesting.  I left with a new level of respect for Bornstein, whom I already respected.  If you are looking for an interesting memoir by someone who has probably led a more exciting life than you then this is the one.

"Hitler is a joke. He will soon disappear."

The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust
By Edith Hahn Beer with Susan Dworkin
2000
Weight: 4.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Gave to a friend




This book was a hand-me-down from my mother. She read it and passed it along—probably in the year 2000. It has been awhile, but when I told her that I finally read it just a few days ago you could tell she remembered it well. I have read so many books that sometimes I only have a vague outline in my head of some of them, even some of my favorites. It is very sad but true. This is not the kind of book you forget.

This book is the memoir of Edith, and it shows her growing up during the Holocaust. She is Jewish, though not Orthodox. She is not familiar with all of the prayers and customs. She grows up in Vienna. At the start, she is laughing with her friends, talking about how no one could ever listen to the crazy ranting of Hitler. Then she is sent to a labor camp and, even then, she believes that it will all end soon. That it will be o.k. She only has to work for 6 months. Those 6 months draw further and further out, and her mother is sent to a concentration camp. Of course, no one knows what that means. She tries to get back to her, but in the end she receives some false papers showing she is not Jewish, goes underground, and eventually marries a Nazi, who is quite a jackass. This saves her life.

I picked this book up on a lunch break at work, and I had trouble putting it down long enough to get everything done and get home. I finished it that night. This woman has an incredible and terrifying story to tell. The book is easy to read, and it is written in a very accessible and not overly contemplative way. Her story shows how long it can take to believe what is incomprehensible, particularly when you are going through it. It shows how quickly people’s feelings can change from restrained/hidden hatred and/or desperation to full-on cruelty and abuse. And then it continues to get worse. I have handed it over to one friend and already have another asking for it. I do recommend that people read Edith’s story.