This is, for any person of conscience, a most powerful read. Not only does the book skillfully guide the
reader through the Jewish experiences of the "ghetto" in Nazi-occupied Poland, but it demands also an accounting from those who remained painfully silent during this horrendous and brutal period of human history.
Mr. Wiesenthal takes the reader through the streets of Warsaw and shows us the faces of those who watch as we are marched to who knows where. It is found later that the prisoners are being used as slave labor, but the word is already out about the furnaces. We are relatively certain that our next trip out of the prison camp will be our last.
We are finally faced with a young Nazi soldier in a
field hospital who has requested that a Jew, any Jew, be
brought to him so that he can ask
forgiveness for his part in the war and the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. We have no choice but to sit and listen. However, the soldier cannot see. He has been seriously wounded in an explosion on the battle field. His face is bandaged, and he cannot see. One thing is certain: he will die soon.
Once he tells his story of how life brought him to this end, he
asks our forgiveness. Should we? Must we? Can we? What will happen if we don't, if we cannot?
Mr. Wiesenthal asks many questions of the reader as we are guided through this
heart-breaking journey, and the reader is compelled to answer not from the head or even the heart - but from the soul.
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