A Lucky Find

I’ve been reading a lot lately. A lot more mature reading that is, as opposed to the daily renditions of Ollie the Stomper and Waddle, Waddle, Quack, Quack, Quack….

Today I finished A Lucky Child by Judge Thomas Buergenthal, a memoir of his experiences during the Holocaust. Justice Buergenthal’s book made me actually get past admiring his words and on to trying to find a way to contact him. I haven’t yet, but I have found more wonderful things he has written.

One is this address where he speaks to members of the American Bar Association. It struck a chord because I had traveled to Europe earlier this decade as well and experienced much the same sense of disappointment regarding American policies at the times in my discussions with people overseas. I felt as if Dr. Buergenthal had stepped into my head and said things I’d thought and felt. When I get the opportunity, I intend to thank him for his words and the chance I had to share his experience and kindness through them. (Update: I believe I have found Justice Buergenthal’s email through George Washington University.)

—- Some other reading I’ve done on the Holocaust and similar human tragedies…. I say tragedies, but most of these tragedies have created some of the greatest triumphs of humanity as well as some of its defeats. The people who wrote these stories or are the subject of these stories are amazing human beings.

The Invisible Wall: Germans and Jews; a personal exploration by W. Michael Blumenthal

Spirit of Survival by Gail Sheehy

A Cup of Tears: a Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto by Abraham Lewin and Antony Polosky

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about survivors of late. I sometimes wonder why, but I have never regretted choosing these books. More than the love poems of Rumi or the religious texts of the Bible, the Talmud, the Tao Te Ching, or Qur’an, more than Shakespeare‘s compendium of masterpieces, I find these stories the most inspiring I have read.