Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label Thomas Buergenthal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas Buergenthal. Show all posts

Monday, June 22, 2009

Wonderful Win: A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal


A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company/Hachette

I won this book from Bingo at Booking with Bingo. Bingo always has great giveaways going on and her blog just seems full of energy!

About the book: Thomas Buergenthal, now a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, was not quite six years old when he and his parents were forced into a Jewish ghetto in Poland. For the next four years they struggled there and in two labor camps, until they were placed on a train bound for Auschwitz. Separated first from his mother and then from his father, ten-year-old Thomas managed by his wits and some remarkable strokes of luck to survive Auschwitz and the infamous death march. Eventually liberated from Sachsenhausen, Thomas found himself the unlikely mascot of a Polish Army regiment, witnessed the fall of Berlin, and spent a year in an orphanage. Miraculously, he was reunited with his mother almost three years after last seeing her at Auschwitz, and in 1951 he emigrated to the United States to start a new life.

Poignant and inspiring, A Lucky Child demonstrates the sheer force of will and determination that even the youngest victims of the Holocaust evinced. Buergenthal writes his story with a simple clarity that highlights the stark details of unimaginable hardship as well as the small wonders of childhood. From teaching himself to ride a bike belonging to an SS officer, to sneaking a heavenly sip of milk, to delighting in the pony given to him by his army comrades, he demonstrates that beauty is present even in the face of the greatest adversity. Filled with the stirring and true insights of a child, this book reminds us of the power of grace and the resilience of the human spirit. (from the book jacket)

About the author: Thomas Buergenthal has devoted his life to international and human rights law. He received law degrees from New York University Law School and Harvard Law School and is currently the American judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He has served on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, U.N. Human Rights Committee, U.N. Truth Commission for El Salvador, and President's Commission on the Holocaust, and has also acted as chairman for the Committee on Conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Co-recipient of the 2008 Gruber Foundation International Justice Prize, he lives in The Hague, Netherlands. (from the book jacket)

A Lucky Child
Publisher/Publication Date: Little, Brown & Company, April 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-04340-3
256 pages

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