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Le Dernier des justes
Dernier d'une lignée de Justes, Ernie Lévy oppose à la haine, à toutes les messes noires de l'humanité (des persécutions du Moyen Age à celles du nazisme), la vocation mystérieuse qui fut celle des ancêtres. Mort six millions de fois, à nouveau menacé, Ernie Lévy est toujours vivant.
Prix Goncourt 1959, Le Dernier des Justes se situe plus que jamais au cœur du débat sur l'histoire et le destin du peuple juif.
Prix Goncourt 1959, Le Dernier des Justes se situe plus que jamais au cœur du débat sur l'histoire et le destin du peuple juif.
432 pages, Pocket Book
First published July 1, 1959
192 people are currently reading
3689 people want to read
About the author
André Schwarz-Bart
14 books27 followersAndré Schwarz-Bart (May 28, 1928, Metz, Moselle - September 30, 2006, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe) was a French novelist of Polish-Jewish origins.
Schwarz-Bart is best known for his novel The Last of the Just (originally published as Le Dernier des justes). The book, which traces the story of a Jewish family from the time of the Crusades to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, earned Schwarz-Bart the Prix Goncourt in 1959. He won the Jerusalem Prize in 1967.
Schwarz-Bart's parents moved to France in 1924, a few years before he was born. In 1941, they were deported to Auschwitz. Soon after, Schwarz-Bart, still a young teen, joined the Resistance, despite the fact that his first language was Yiddish, and he could barely speak French. It was his experiences as a Jew during the war that later prompted him to write his major work, chronicling Jewish history through the eyes of a wounded survivor.
Schwarz-Bart died of a complications after heart surgery in 2006. He had spent his final years in Guadeloupe, with his wife, the novelist Simone Schwarz-Bart, whose parents were natives of the island. The two co-wrote the book Pork and Green Bananas (1967). It is also suggested that his wife collaborated with him on A Woman Named Solitude.
Their son, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, is a noted jazz saxophonist.
Schwarz-Bart is best known for his novel The Last of the Just (originally published as Le Dernier des justes). The book, which traces the story of a Jewish family from the time of the Crusades to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, earned Schwarz-Bart the Prix Goncourt in 1959. He won the Jerusalem Prize in 1967.
Schwarz-Bart's parents moved to France in 1924, a few years before he was born. In 1941, they were deported to Auschwitz. Soon after, Schwarz-Bart, still a young teen, joined the Resistance, despite the fact that his first language was Yiddish, and he could barely speak French. It was his experiences as a Jew during the war that later prompted him to write his major work, chronicling Jewish history through the eyes of a wounded survivor.
Schwarz-Bart died of a complications after heart surgery in 2006. He had spent his final years in Guadeloupe, with his wife, the novelist Simone Schwarz-Bart, whose parents were natives of the island. The two co-wrote the book Pork and Green Bananas (1967). It is also suggested that his wife collaborated with him on A Woman Named Solitude.
Their son, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, is a noted jazz saxophonist.
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February 23, 2023
This book, written in 1959, was one of the early accountings of the atrocities inflicted on Jews in Europe during World War II. The novel caused a sensation in France when it was published and the blurb says the Prix Goncourt was awarded early specifically to recognize this book.
The main character is a young boy who is so humiliated by his teachers and classmates that he attempts suicide. There are many parallels with the Jewish boy in the novel The Oppermanns by Leon Feuchtwanger, including the idea that some German Jews considered themselves ‘more German than Jewish’ but, in the end, that did not save them.
It’s all here – the terror, the brutality, the senselessness of the persecutions, the pervasive terror of the times. The book begins as a family saga following several generations of this particular family lineage of ‘just’ men. There is a lot of history of the family in the book going back to the Crusades around 1200, but the story comes to focus during World War II.
The title comes from the Jewish tradition of a just man, which can be inherited, although not necessarily so, as the just man sometimes skips a generation. Fathers are sometimes surprised by which of their sons or grandsons becomes the just man. The role of the just man is to take on 1/36 of the suffering of the world, or at least to be cognizant of that suffering. There’s a lot of suffering to go around, so the earth requires 36 just men.
A classic line from the book: “…let us speak rather of something gay. What’s new about the war?” There are no happy endings in this work.
The author (1928-2006) was born to Polish-Jewish parents in France and he wrote in French. He joined the French resistance against the German occupation. Late in life he moved to Guadeloupe and married an author there, Simone Schwartz-Bart. They co-wrote some books such as In Praise of Black Women. The Last of the Just is his most widely-read book on GR.
Photo of the author and his wife Simone from madinin-art.net
Revised, picture and shelves added 2/23/23
The main character is a young boy who is so humiliated by his teachers and classmates that he attempts suicide. There are many parallels with the Jewish boy in the novel The Oppermanns by Leon Feuchtwanger, including the idea that some German Jews considered themselves ‘more German than Jewish’ but, in the end, that did not save them.
It’s all here – the terror, the brutality, the senselessness of the persecutions, the pervasive terror of the times. The book begins as a family saga following several generations of this particular family lineage of ‘just’ men. There is a lot of history of the family in the book going back to the Crusades around 1200, but the story comes to focus during World War II.
The title comes from the Jewish tradition of a just man, which can be inherited, although not necessarily so, as the just man sometimes skips a generation. Fathers are sometimes surprised by which of their sons or grandsons becomes the just man. The role of the just man is to take on 1/36 of the suffering of the world, or at least to be cognizant of that suffering. There’s a lot of suffering to go around, so the earth requires 36 just men.
A classic line from the book: “…let us speak rather of something gay. What’s new about the war?” There are no happy endings in this work.
The author (1928-2006) was born to Polish-Jewish parents in France and he wrote in French. He joined the French resistance against the German occupation. Late in life he moved to Guadeloupe and married an author there, Simone Schwartz-Bart. They co-wrote some books such as In Praise of Black Women. The Last of the Just is his most widely-read book on GR.
Photo of the author and his wife Simone from madinin-art.net
Revised, picture and shelves added 2/23/23
June 30, 2015
“ It is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and that were it not for them, all of them, if even one of them was missing, the world would come to an end. The two Hebrew letters for 36 are the lamed, which is 30, and the vav, which is six. Therefore, these 36 are referred to as the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim. This widely-held belief, this most unusual Jewish concept is based on a Talmudic statement to the effect that in every generation 36 righteous "greet the Shechinah," the Divine Presence (Tractate Sanhedrin 97b; Tractate Sukkah 45b).
“Rivers of blood have flowed, columns of smoke have obscured the sky, but surviving all these dooms, the tradition has remained inviolate down to our own time. According to it, the world reposes upon thirty-six Just Men, the Lamed-Vov, indistinguishable from simple mortals; often they are unaware of their station. But if just one of them were lacking, the sufferings of mankind would poison even the souls of the newborn, and humanity would suffocate with a single cry. For the Lamed-Vov are the hearts of the world multiplied, and into them, as into one receptacle, pour all our griefs.” — from The Last of the Just, by Andre Schwarz-Bart
Scattered throughout the world, their identity is unknown, even to each other. If, unlikely as it may be, one of them is ‘discovered’ by accident, the secret of their identity must not be disclosed. The lamed-vavniks do not themselves know that they are one of the 36. In fact, if a person claimed to be one of the 36, that is proof that he or she is certainly not one, since the 36 are each great exemplars of anavah, (“humility”) and, as such, are simply too humble to believe that they are special.
Like much of the more profound tenets of Jewish mythology, the “meaning” of this story is not in its content, but in what effect belief in its truth would have on the practice of one’s life. What would it mean to live in this world? It would mean that, not only must I treat every passing human being as a potential cornerstone of the world’s continued existence, but that I must recognise and cherish the humble, those who seem most attuned to the endless grief and suffering of our species. To query whether such people actually exist is to miss the point, as it would be to query whether Shabbat has any true, inherent “specialness”, other than that we can give to it through our conscious, ritualistic efforts to do so. Judaism is at its most powerful when it is about ways of Being in the World, rather than creed and dogma, which is why it is perfectly possible to be both an atheist and a Jew.
So, how does this concept, and the way it is expressed in this novel, enrich or illuminate our understanding or “experience” of the Shoah? I think that one answer to this question is to consider the role of the Author as inhabiting, in some way, the position of such a Lamed-Vav. For is it not possible to view Schwarz-Bart, and many other of his fellow Survivor-writers, as such vessels for this grief, through which it pours, is channelled, funnelled into ink and forced through the sharp nib of a pen? I have studied this period for almost 20 years, including writing a Master’s Thesis on some of the worst aspects of Nazi Brutality, and yet the ending of this Novel had me in tears, in a way very little else had done. Why?
To write a Novel of the Shoah is to take on immeasurable sorrow, to put pen to page and narrate such events, to summon them up from the past and place them, raw and bloodied, in the Reader’s mind, it is a task of unenviable difficulty. And when your parents were murdered in Auschwitz? When you, as a young teenager, fought in the French Resistance, despite speaking only Yiddish and a slight, smattering of French? How much harder must the task be then? How much greater must the honour be we accord those capable of such action? There are many novels that deal with this period, and with these events, but very few have any true power, very few do little but simplify, rationalise, dramatize, turn the indescribable into recognisable tropes, and thereby diminish the “truth” of these events. Hollywood narratives have no place in the Death Camps.
There are many reasons for reading this novel: it is wonderfully well written, it is endlessly fascinating; it is historically and humanistically rich; its structural and thematic daring is, at times, breathtaking; and it is filled with people whose tales will move you. However, the most important reason remains, for me, that to do so is to perform a ritual, to say a set of magic words which re-juvenate, re-incarnate, re-member the sorrows of Jewish (which is a synonym of “human”, of course) history, and which alters the Reader’s present by its presence. It is also to acknowledge that “specialness” of those who are prepared to create such a text, and to allow our lives to flood over with it. There may be many more than 36, or there may be less, there may also be a piece of each 36 shattered throughout us all, but I know there are those in this world whose existence has a power which ripples wider than they know, and they should be cherished. They may not create art, but if they do, such art will be as close to the Sacred as an atheist like me can get.
“Rivers of blood have flowed, columns of smoke have obscured the sky, but surviving all these dooms, the tradition has remained inviolate down to our own time. According to it, the world reposes upon thirty-six Just Men, the Lamed-Vov, indistinguishable from simple mortals; often they are unaware of their station. But if just one of them were lacking, the sufferings of mankind would poison even the souls of the newborn, and humanity would suffocate with a single cry. For the Lamed-Vov are the hearts of the world multiplied, and into them, as into one receptacle, pour all our griefs.” — from The Last of the Just, by Andre Schwarz-Bart
Scattered throughout the world, their identity is unknown, even to each other. If, unlikely as it may be, one of them is ‘discovered’ by accident, the secret of their identity must not be disclosed. The lamed-vavniks do not themselves know that they are one of the 36. In fact, if a person claimed to be one of the 36, that is proof that he or she is certainly not one, since the 36 are each great exemplars of anavah, (“humility”) and, as such, are simply too humble to believe that they are special.
Like much of the more profound tenets of Jewish mythology, the “meaning” of this story is not in its content, but in what effect belief in its truth would have on the practice of one’s life. What would it mean to live in this world? It would mean that, not only must I treat every passing human being as a potential cornerstone of the world’s continued existence, but that I must recognise and cherish the humble, those who seem most attuned to the endless grief and suffering of our species. To query whether such people actually exist is to miss the point, as it would be to query whether Shabbat has any true, inherent “specialness”, other than that we can give to it through our conscious, ritualistic efforts to do so. Judaism is at its most powerful when it is about ways of Being in the World, rather than creed and dogma, which is why it is perfectly possible to be both an atheist and a Jew.
So, how does this concept, and the way it is expressed in this novel, enrich or illuminate our understanding or “experience” of the Shoah? I think that one answer to this question is to consider the role of the Author as inhabiting, in some way, the position of such a Lamed-Vav. For is it not possible to view Schwarz-Bart, and many other of his fellow Survivor-writers, as such vessels for this grief, through which it pours, is channelled, funnelled into ink and forced through the sharp nib of a pen? I have studied this period for almost 20 years, including writing a Master’s Thesis on some of the worst aspects of Nazi Brutality, and yet the ending of this Novel had me in tears, in a way very little else had done. Why?
To write a Novel of the Shoah is to take on immeasurable sorrow, to put pen to page and narrate such events, to summon them up from the past and place them, raw and bloodied, in the Reader’s mind, it is a task of unenviable difficulty. And when your parents were murdered in Auschwitz? When you, as a young teenager, fought in the French Resistance, despite speaking only Yiddish and a slight, smattering of French? How much harder must the task be then? How much greater must the honour be we accord those capable of such action? There are many novels that deal with this period, and with these events, but very few have any true power, very few do little but simplify, rationalise, dramatize, turn the indescribable into recognisable tropes, and thereby diminish the “truth” of these events. Hollywood narratives have no place in the Death Camps.
There are many reasons for reading this novel: it is wonderfully well written, it is endlessly fascinating; it is historically and humanistically rich; its structural and thematic daring is, at times, breathtaking; and it is filled with people whose tales will move you. However, the most important reason remains, for me, that to do so is to perform a ritual, to say a set of magic words which re-juvenate, re-incarnate, re-member the sorrows of Jewish (which is a synonym of “human”, of course) history, and which alters the Reader’s present by its presence. It is also to acknowledge that “specialness” of those who are prepared to create such a text, and to allow our lives to flood over with it. There may be many more than 36, or there may be less, there may also be a piece of each 36 shattered throughout us all, but I know there are those in this world whose existence has a power which ripples wider than they know, and they should be cherished. They may not create art, but if they do, such art will be as close to the Sacred as an atheist like me can get.
January 2, 2012
"THE LAST OF THE JUST," Andre Schwarz-Bart's novel of remembrance
As an under grad at the University of Alabama, I often spent my time between classes at a college bookstore, Malone's, or at The Alabama Bookstore. Malone's was ultimately gobbled up by their competition. However both stores offered shelves of literature that frequently caught my eye and my meager funds.
The Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart was one of the many books I bought during my college days. I skipped lunch that day to buy it. I was skinny then, too, had hair, muscles, and the world on a string. I still have my original paperback copy, boxed away, but readily obtainable. This is a book I remember as clearly today as when I first read it, too many years ago.
It was a visit to my next door neighbor last night that prompted me to review it today. As I have mentioned before, my neighbor is one of my former psychology professors. We raid one another's bookshelves on a regular basis.
Old Uncle Howard, as he calls himself to me, is something of a father figure. And I have officially been made a member of the Miller family. Howard is Jewish, but considers himself so culturally, not spiritually, as he will tell you in a heartbeat. "Not since nine, have I believed!"
"How can you know," I asked him. He grunted. "Occam's Razor, remember your history and systems of psychology course."
"But there had to be some initial causation, wouldn't you say," I retorted. "From a standpoint of intellectual honesty, the only thing we can say within reason is, 'I don't know.'"
"Grunt. Grrrmph."
The Millers lost a son to cancer a year or so before I became their neighbor. Sometimes I think I may have become "adopted." Of late, when I visit, I have dined with them. My place is set between them, Old Uncle Howard at the head of the table to my right, his wife to the left.
Interestingly, although claiming to be a non-believer, Howard says Kaddish for his son each year. He has shown me his yarmulke, his brother's and his father's, which he keeps carefully packed away. His Hebrew flows as a song. During Hanukkah, the Menorah was in view and Howard bought a Hanukkah table cloth.
It was around that time I borrowed The Complete Mausby Art Spiegelman from him. I had never read it, though I was familiar with it. I was stunned, as I previously indicated in my review of it.
When I returned "Maus" to Uncle Howard, we discussed it, as we always do about our reading. I mentioned that Art Spiegelman had published MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus. Howard's response was two eyebrows archly raised, punctuated by an enthusiastic and curious "Really?" His wife always shares in our talks. She is as voracious a reader as many of us are.
A few days later when I popped over to check on them, Margaret said, "I have to show you something." She excitedly opened a box from Amazon. It was MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus. "I saw the look on Howard's face when you were telling him about it." She's very observant. smile
So yesterday, I ambled over to take them a whopping big bowl of hopping john, collards, and southern cornbread--that means no sugar in the bread, thank you very much. Sugar in cornbread is an abomination. You want sugar, eat cake.
Howard and I were chatting. "I never saw your response when you opened MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus. What did you think?"
"Now, that's a BOOK!" His face was almost luminous as he answered. "I was wandering. Do you think there is a way to get Art Spiegelman to sign this?"
I told him I was sure there might be some way. I suggested a personal letter to the publisher who would forward it to Spiegelman through his editor or agent.
"Good. A letter I can write. I should tell him about my grandparents in Auschwitz."
"You've never told me."
"Oh, the subject just never came up before."
"Uh-huh."
"Sometimes I wonder that I was ever born. They were two of the lucky ones. I could have been somebody else or nothing at all."
And that led me to ask him if he had ever read The Last of the Just. "No. Tell me about it."
So, I told him. Today, I write to tell you about it.
From Wiki:
,
[1]Rabbi Zwerin's Sermon Kol Nidre, The 36: Who are they? http://web.archive.org/web/2003011822... The Rebbe's sermon is a fascinating read, its self.
André Schwarz-Bart's life is something to ponder about as much as his novel, The Last of the Just. Born May 28, 1928, Metz, Moselle, Schwarz-Bart was a Frenchman of Polish-Jewish origins. His parents moved to France in 1924.
In 1941, Schwarz-Bart's parents were seized by the Nazis and transported to Auschwitz. Schwarz-Bart escaped the round-up and joined the French Resistance, still a teenager. His parents died at Auschwitz. His war time experiences and the deaths of his parents resulted in Le Dernier des Justes published in France in 1959, taking the Prix de Grancourt in the same year. It appeared in English, translated by Stephen Becker, as The Last of the Just published by Atheneum in 1960.
Schwarz-Bart uses the realm of the Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim to tell the story of the Levy family beginning in 1105 England, with the earliest known member of the family to be one of the thirty-six righteous. What follows is a horror story of hate, inquisitions, intolerance, murder, and pogroms, as we watch each generation assume the burden of responsibility and guilt for the evils of humanity, to justify the existence of life.
We end with Ernie, a teen-aged boy, who could pass for a gentile but enters the maelstrom of the holocaust. He is the last of his line. How can one man absorb the burden of the final solution to justify the existence of humanity?
This book remains as alive for me today as when I first read it almost forty years or more ago. And I've read it since. It still haunts me.
In 1991, Michael Dorris, writing for the LA Times, said,
What was once an international sensation seems to have faded into obscurity. A first edition of the first American edition can be picked up for a song. I think I'll buy one--no, two. One for me and one for Uncle Howard.
Andre Schwarze-Bart died of complications following heart surgery on September 30, 2006, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. I will remember him. Should you read this wonderful book, so will you.
"May there be abundant peace
from Heaven
and good life
for us and for all Israel
- and let’s say to it, Amen."
From the Mourner's Kaddish
As an under grad at the University of Alabama, I often spent my time between classes at a college bookstore, Malone's, or at The Alabama Bookstore. Malone's was ultimately gobbled up by their competition. However both stores offered shelves of literature that frequently caught my eye and my meager funds.
The Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart was one of the many books I bought during my college days. I skipped lunch that day to buy it. I was skinny then, too, had hair, muscles, and the world on a string. I still have my original paperback copy, boxed away, but readily obtainable. This is a book I remember as clearly today as when I first read it, too many years ago.
It was a visit to my next door neighbor last night that prompted me to review it today. As I have mentioned before, my neighbor is one of my former psychology professors. We raid one another's bookshelves on a regular basis.
Old Uncle Howard, as he calls himself to me, is something of a father figure. And I have officially been made a member of the Miller family. Howard is Jewish, but considers himself so culturally, not spiritually, as he will tell you in a heartbeat. "Not since nine, have I believed!"
"How can you know," I asked him. He grunted. "Occam's Razor, remember your history and systems of psychology course."
"But there had to be some initial causation, wouldn't you say," I retorted. "From a standpoint of intellectual honesty, the only thing we can say within reason is, 'I don't know.'"
"Grunt. Grrrmph."
The Millers lost a son to cancer a year or so before I became their neighbor. Sometimes I think I may have become "adopted." Of late, when I visit, I have dined with them. My place is set between them, Old Uncle Howard at the head of the table to my right, his wife to the left.
Interestingly, although claiming to be a non-believer, Howard says Kaddish for his son each year. He has shown me his yarmulke, his brother's and his father's, which he keeps carefully packed away. His Hebrew flows as a song. During Hanukkah, the Menorah was in view and Howard bought a Hanukkah table cloth.
It was around that time I borrowed The Complete Mausby Art Spiegelman from him. I had never read it, though I was familiar with it. I was stunned, as I previously indicated in my review of it.
When I returned "Maus" to Uncle Howard, we discussed it, as we always do about our reading. I mentioned that Art Spiegelman had published MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus. Howard's response was two eyebrows archly raised, punctuated by an enthusiastic and curious "Really?" His wife always shares in our talks. She is as voracious a reader as many of us are.
A few days later when I popped over to check on them, Margaret said, "I have to show you something." She excitedly opened a box from Amazon. It was MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus. "I saw the look on Howard's face when you were telling him about it." She's very observant. smile
So yesterday, I ambled over to take them a whopping big bowl of hopping john, collards, and southern cornbread--that means no sugar in the bread, thank you very much. Sugar in cornbread is an abomination. You want sugar, eat cake.
Howard and I were chatting. "I never saw your response when you opened MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus. What did you think?"
"Now, that's a BOOK!" His face was almost luminous as he answered. "I was wandering. Do you think there is a way to get Art Spiegelman to sign this?"
I told him I was sure there might be some way. I suggested a personal letter to the publisher who would forward it to Spiegelman through his editor or agent.
"Good. A letter I can write. I should tell him about my grandparents in Auschwitz."
"You've never told me."
"Oh, the subject just never came up before."
"Uh-huh."
"Sometimes I wonder that I was ever born. They were two of the lucky ones. I could have been somebody else or nothing at all."
And that led me to ask him if he had ever read The Last of the Just. "No. Tell me about it."
So, I told him. Today, I write to tell you about it.
From Wiki:
Mystical Hasidic Judaism as well as other segments of Judaism believe that there is the Jewish tradition of 36 righteous people whose role in life is to justify the purpose of humankind in the eyes of God. Tradition holds that their identities are unknown to each other and that, if one of them comes to a realization of their true purpose then they may die and their role is immediately assumed by another person:
The Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim are also called the Nistarim ("concealed ones"). In our folk tales, they emerge from their self-imposed concealment and, by the mystic powers, which they possess, they succeed in averting the threatened disasters of a people persecuted by the enemies that surround them. They return to their anonymity as soon as their task is accomplished, 'concealing' themselves once again in a Jewish community wherein they are relatively unknown. The lamed-vavniks, scattered as they are throughout the Diaspora, have no acquaintance with one another. On very rare occasions, one of them is 'discovered' by accident, in which case the secret of their identity must not be disclosed. The lamed-vavniks do not themselves know that they are ones of the 36. In fact, tradition has it that should a person claim to be one of the 36, that is proof positive that they are certainly not one. Since the 36 are each exemplars of anavah, ("humility"), having such a virtue would preclude against one’s self-proclamation of being among the special righteous. The 36 are simply too humble to believe that they are one of the 36.[1]
,
[1]Rabbi Zwerin's Sermon Kol Nidre, The 36: Who are they? http://web.archive.org/web/2003011822... The Rebbe's sermon is a fascinating read, its self.
André Schwarz-Bart's life is something to ponder about as much as his novel, The Last of the Just. Born May 28, 1928, Metz, Moselle, Schwarz-Bart was a Frenchman of Polish-Jewish origins. His parents moved to France in 1924.
In 1941, Schwarz-Bart's parents were seized by the Nazis and transported to Auschwitz. Schwarz-Bart escaped the round-up and joined the French Resistance, still a teenager. His parents died at Auschwitz. His war time experiences and the deaths of his parents resulted in Le Dernier des Justes published in France in 1959, taking the Prix de Grancourt in the same year. It appeared in English, translated by Stephen Becker, as The Last of the Just published by Atheneum in 1960.
Schwarz-Bart uses the realm of the Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim to tell the story of the Levy family beginning in 1105 England, with the earliest known member of the family to be one of the thirty-six righteous. What follows is a horror story of hate, inquisitions, intolerance, murder, and pogroms, as we watch each generation assume the burden of responsibility and guilt for the evils of humanity, to justify the existence of life.
We end with Ernie, a teen-aged boy, who could pass for a gentile but enters the maelstrom of the holocaust. He is the last of his line. How can one man absorb the burden of the final solution to justify the existence of humanity?
This book remains as alive for me today as when I first read it almost forty years or more ago. And I've read it since. It still haunts me.
In 1991, Michael Dorris, writing for the LA Times, said,
Every page demands to know: "Why? How could this abomination have happened?" Whether Jewish or Gentile, we are reminded how easily torn is the precious fabric of civilization, and how destructive are the consequences of dumb hatred-whether a society's henchmen are permitted to beat an Ernie Levy because he's Jewish, or because he's black or gay or Hispanic or homeless. The novel endures precisely because it forces us to empathize, and thus to remember.http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/a...
What was once an international sensation seems to have faded into obscurity. A first edition of the first American edition can be picked up for a song. I think I'll buy one--no, two. One for me and one for Uncle Howard.
Andre Schwarze-Bart died of complications following heart surgery on September 30, 2006, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. I will remember him. Should you read this wonderful book, so will you.
"May there be abundant peace
from Heaven
and good life
for us and for all Israel
- and let’s say to it, Amen."
From the Mourner's Kaddish
February 3, 2014
How common is a phase of Shoah exploration? I found it rather odd and off-outting when I fell into a period in my early 20s, I was nearly obsessed and read constantly from scholarly analyses, memoirs and novels. I found the subject nearly untenable for most people in Southern Indiana: why would you want to read about that? Since then I have encountered a half dozen kindred souls who likewise went inexplicably overboard on this darkest of subjects.
I read this novel in 1994 and was ripped as if by the throat and throttled violently.
I read this novel in 1994 and was ripped as if by the throat and throttled violently.
July 28, 2012
One of my favorite pieces of realistic fiction, Schwarz-Bart's book is nothing less than a masterpiece. The book examines antisemitism throughout historic Europe up to WW2. The story goes through several pogroms throughout Europe's history and ends with the worst act of evil to ever befall the Jewish people of Europe, the Holocaust.
The story is heavily based on the Tzadikim Nistarim, a notion prevalent within mystical Hasidim. Having some background knowledge about Europe's history after establishment of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as a bit of background knowledge about Judaism may help establish a better contextual footing for somebody reading this book for the first time.
I highly recommend reading this book several times throughout your life. The text seems to get richer and richer after each reading, which is indicative of a true work of literary genius.
The story is heavily based on the Tzadikim Nistarim, a notion prevalent within mystical Hasidim. Having some background knowledge about Europe's history after establishment of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as a bit of background knowledge about Judaism may help establish a better contextual footing for somebody reading this book for the first time.
I highly recommend reading this book several times throughout your life. The text seems to get richer and richer after each reading, which is indicative of a true work of literary genius.
August 6, 2017
A great book that I must re-read.
April 26, 2009
it is difficult to find words to describe a book that i look back upon as one of the most brilliant yet difficult reads of my life. andre' schwarz-bart, winner of the Prix Goncourt, is an author extraordinnaire. a genius of a writer who might not appeal to the "average" reader (please forgive the sound of arrogance) yet will titillate the juices of the discriminating, deep reader. i cannot say too much nor do i want to write so-called "spoilers." this work of genius and art ranks as one the more difficult holocaust story reads i've EVER experienced. schwarz-bart takes his readers on a roller-coaster ride through the history of the story of "the last of the just" which commences back to the time of the prophet isaiah, jumping from chapter to chapter from the life of ernie levy ("the last of the just") back to...the begining...then back to ernie once more until, eventually, we stay with ernie and his attempts to escape the almost inevitable fate of every european jew during the rise of hitler's nazi war machine and attempts to wipe the jews off the face of the earth. i promise you great emotion as you travel with mr schwarz-bart, the 36 mortal just men and then, ernie levy, "the last of the just." brilliant, emotional and a don't miss, must read.
July 30, 2008
Amongst the literature of the Holocaust, this is an absolute masterpiece. It's based on a twist of the Chassidic legend that there are 36 righteous people hidden in the world whose very existence justifies the existence of the rest of it, even evil. The author made mistakes with the concept, though. In his book, the status of being one of the righteous is passed from father to son, which is NOT part of the Chassidic tradition. Also, they seem to know that they are the hidden righteous, which is certainly not part of the tradition. The hidden righteous are supposed to be so humble, they themselves don't realize that their righteousness is sustaining the world. My husband tells me that the number 36 isn't even Chassidic tradition, but that one has become particularly well-known.
All this aside, it's a beautifully, haunting book that begins in the Middle Ages and follows through with every generation. Each of the hidden righteous is martyred somehow, which, unfortunately, is true to life. The book focuses in especially on the generation before the Holocaust with life in the shtetl and the arranged marriage of the couple who become the parents of the final protagonist, a Jewish boy living during the Holocaust.
The book is as tragic as you'd expect, but still a literary masterpiece.
All this aside, it's a beautifully, haunting book that begins in the Middle Ages and follows through with every generation. Each of the hidden righteous is martyred somehow, which, unfortunately, is true to life. The book focuses in especially on the generation before the Holocaust with life in the shtetl and the arranged marriage of the couple who become the parents of the final protagonist, a Jewish boy living during the Holocaust.
The book is as tragic as you'd expect, but still a literary masterpiece.
September 2, 2008
An absolutely essential read for anyone who has any interest whatsoever in trying to understand the Holocaust. It is a singular work and one of the most powerful novels I have ever read. The ending is something that I will never get out of my mind. Devastating.
March 30, 2012
All I can say that after that one has read this novel, one can not be the same as had been before.
December 3, 2018
Awe inspiring. Unforgettable.
August 19, 2015
"Our eyes register the light of dead stars. A biography of my friend Ernie could easily be set in the second quarter of the twentieth century, but the true history of Ernie Levy begins much earlier, toward the year 1,000 of our era, in the old Anglican city of York. More precisely, on March 11, 1185."
So begins "The Last of the Just," a novel in the form of a biographical accounting of the life of Ernie Levy. It opens and ends with a tale of massacre and survival, to the tune of the sad, mystical song of the lamed vovnik.
The lamed (pronounced lah-med to rhyme with ma bed) vovnik (rhymes with 'of brick,' accent on the first syllable, at least in Yiddish), also called tsadikim nistarim (hidden tsadikim or righteous ones), are just men. According to the talmud, at any point in time there must be 36 just people in the world (the letter lamed ל is the Hebrew numeral for 30 and the letter vav ו for 6). If there are any fewer than 36, the world would end.
Schwartz-Bart, a survivor himself, starts this novel with a beautiful and intriguing genealogy of the just men of the Levy family preceding Ernie Levy, all destined to suffer and die horrific martyr-like deaths in massacres and pogroms, though at certain points in history, they don't die when and where and how they are supposed to, a puzzle that leads this book into the territory of existential comedy, where it soars. Schwartz-Bart carefully and skillfully opens up the tragic depths so that the void is almost tangible and the echoes of the cries of millions are not so far away. But this book is full of life, too, dreaminess, humor and fable. It is as restless as Levy himself, as innocent, provocative, tender and mischievous.
So we travel through time with the Levys, spend a few generations in Zemyock in the shtetl where Ernie's forbears finally settled after so much wandering. His grandparents survive a pogrom, after which Ernie's father (to be) moves to Germany and opens up shop as a tailor. He is so successful he sends for his parents and they move in, and Benjamin Levy is so ashamed of their old-world ways he tries to keep their true identities a secret. But how can he keep anything secret when in the end, his parents make the rules. The family dynamics are hilarious and sometimes quite touching. The fight between the old world and the new is a losing battle, but an important one, and one effervescently rendered. Ernie and his grandfather share a special bond and it gets them both in trouble, but it also gives Ernie the tools he needs to keep his soul in tact even as his body suffers.
"The Last of the Just" takes us from Spain to Poland to Germany to France. As it moves, the prose shifts registers swiftly and gorgeously. The book flies through time more quickly as it opens, and in the second half, it does something different in relationship to time. It burns through time or cuts and scars, it shatters the body of time so it bleeds and never heals.
Ernie is as complex as they come. He is a complex simpleton. He's a genius. He is a kind of madman and perhaps the most sane and gentle soul I've encountered in prose. He loses his way to extremes, and explores sometimes the more magical territory of ideas before getting struck by understanding. Struck hard. He escapes with a few scratches or he is broken to pieces. But his soul remains a force of gentleness and wholeness.
It's taken me years to read this book, partly because of the intensity, partly because of the beauty, partly because of my fear of what would come if I kept turning pages. I'm glad I finally finished it but I am sad, too, that this particular journey is done.
So begins "The Last of the Just," a novel in the form of a biographical accounting of the life of Ernie Levy. It opens and ends with a tale of massacre and survival, to the tune of the sad, mystical song of the lamed vovnik.
The lamed (pronounced lah-med to rhyme with ma bed) vovnik (rhymes with 'of brick,' accent on the first syllable, at least in Yiddish), also called tsadikim nistarim (hidden tsadikim or righteous ones), are just men. According to the talmud, at any point in time there must be 36 just people in the world (the letter lamed ל is the Hebrew numeral for 30 and the letter vav ו for 6). If there are any fewer than 36, the world would end.
Schwartz-Bart, a survivor himself, starts this novel with a beautiful and intriguing genealogy of the just men of the Levy family preceding Ernie Levy, all destined to suffer and die horrific martyr-like deaths in massacres and pogroms, though at certain points in history, they don't die when and where and how they are supposed to, a puzzle that leads this book into the territory of existential comedy, where it soars. Schwartz-Bart carefully and skillfully opens up the tragic depths so that the void is almost tangible and the echoes of the cries of millions are not so far away. But this book is full of life, too, dreaminess, humor and fable. It is as restless as Levy himself, as innocent, provocative, tender and mischievous.
So we travel through time with the Levys, spend a few generations in Zemyock in the shtetl where Ernie's forbears finally settled after so much wandering. His grandparents survive a pogrom, after which Ernie's father (to be) moves to Germany and opens up shop as a tailor. He is so successful he sends for his parents and they move in, and Benjamin Levy is so ashamed of their old-world ways he tries to keep their true identities a secret. But how can he keep anything secret when in the end, his parents make the rules. The family dynamics are hilarious and sometimes quite touching. The fight between the old world and the new is a losing battle, but an important one, and one effervescently rendered. Ernie and his grandfather share a special bond and it gets them both in trouble, but it also gives Ernie the tools he needs to keep his soul in tact even as his body suffers.
"The Last of the Just" takes us from Spain to Poland to Germany to France. As it moves, the prose shifts registers swiftly and gorgeously. The book flies through time more quickly as it opens, and in the second half, it does something different in relationship to time. It burns through time or cuts and scars, it shatters the body of time so it bleeds and never heals.
Ernie is as complex as they come. He is a complex simpleton. He's a genius. He is a kind of madman and perhaps the most sane and gentle soul I've encountered in prose. He loses his way to extremes, and explores sometimes the more magical territory of ideas before getting struck by understanding. Struck hard. He escapes with a few scratches or he is broken to pieces. But his soul remains a force of gentleness and wholeness.
It's taken me years to read this book, partly because of the intensity, partly because of the beauty, partly because of my fear of what would come if I kept turning pages. I'm glad I finally finished it but I am sad, too, that this particular journey is done.
June 26, 2012
This is an exceptional book. The story of the persecution of Jews is structured with the legend of the 38 Just Men. From the death of Rabbi Yom Tov Levy in York, England, in 1185, to the end of Ernie Levy's life in the gas chamber at Auschwitz, we follow the sufferings and joys of Jewish people over the centuries, through the lineage of one of the Just Men.
Schwartz-Bart created characters that drew me into the story. He shows human suffering so effectively that I found myself pulling out of the story at times - thankful that I'm not the one suffering the taunts and physical violence the characters in the book endured.
Description is another strength of Schwartz-Bart. The village of Zemyock, in Poland, Stillenstadt in Germany; Paris, France; countryside; home life; conflict with Christian Poles, Germans, and French - all are presented vividly and clearly. It was easy to get into the dream.
Love and hate, us and them, hope and despair, cruelty and compassion, hunger and plenty, comfort and misery - all of these contributed to making this book not only interesting to read, but also informative. I was left wanting to learn more about what happened after the Holocaust.
Schwartz-Bart created characters that drew me into the story. He shows human suffering so effectively that I found myself pulling out of the story at times - thankful that I'm not the one suffering the taunts and physical violence the characters in the book endured.
Description is another strength of Schwartz-Bart. The village of Zemyock, in Poland, Stillenstadt in Germany; Paris, France; countryside; home life; conflict with Christian Poles, Germans, and French - all are presented vividly and clearly. It was easy to get into the dream.
Love and hate, us and them, hope and despair, cruelty and compassion, hunger and plenty, comfort and misery - all of these contributed to making this book not only interesting to read, but also informative. I was left wanting to learn more about what happened after the Holocaust.
July 7, 2008
The legend says that there are 36 just men who take on the world suffering onto their own shoulders, a kind of pact with God whereby He allows the world to continue.
Ernie Levy is one of those Justs, and while the book nominally covers eight centuries, Ernie's destiny is at its center, a destiny that will set him adrift through WWII Europe with an inevitable ending in a concentration camp.
This is one of the great books of my life, so powerful, moving and shocking that I literally had recurring dreams about it for quite a while after reading it.
We have all read various books about the Holocaust, but I am confident when I say that none is quite like this one...
Ernie Levy is one of those Justs, and while the book nominally covers eight centuries, Ernie's destiny is at its center, a destiny that will set him adrift through WWII Europe with an inevitable ending in a concentration camp.
This is one of the great books of my life, so powerful, moving and shocking that I literally had recurring dreams about it for quite a while after reading it.
We have all read various books about the Holocaust, but I am confident when I say that none is quite like this one...
February 12, 2018
This is a profound book... an emotional story about the Holocaust weaving in Jewish mystical beliefs. It is definitely not beach reading or a quick read. Read it slowly and try to understand the depth of suffering which the Jewish people endured during the Nazi era.
January 22, 2009
God only knows why this book isn't taught in every school. Okay, so on the surface, it's a story of Jewish oppression in WWII, but it's so much more.
January 23, 2023
Stunning. Maybe the best book I’ve ever read.
December 28, 2022
Prix Goncourt 1959, probabilmente l’ho comperato su una bancarella per la fascetta originale sulla prima edizione italiana. Poi me lo sono dimenticata nello scaffale degli “ebrei-israeliani”. Fino a quando “l’ebreo fortunato” Dan Segre non ha risvegliato il mio interesse.
L’inizio è travolgente, una summa delle narrazioni dei Giusti. E solo le prime trenta pagine sono il compendio di tutte le ingiustizie, non dimentico che fino a metà del ‘900 sugli Ebrei, sui Giudei, cadeva la condanna di deicidio, indistintamente. E quale colpa più grande può esistere al mondo? In un mondo che si prende così sul serio come quello cristiano-cattolico, gli Ebrei, vivendo, sono la negazione vivente del Cristo, del Redentore. Quindi dei cristiani. E’ un’accusa ontologica, che si portano in corpo. Solo l’intuizione di uno stato laico – puntellato dai sensi di colpa dell’Occidente, per aver visto e non avere fatto nulla – poteva avere corso e portare all’attuale Israele.
L’ultimo dei Giusti porta sulle spalle tutti i Giusti prima di lui che si sono annullati e fatti polvere per finire fumo nel vento, come cantava il Poeta.
L’inizio è travolgente, una summa delle narrazioni dei Giusti. E solo le prime trenta pagine sono il compendio di tutte le ingiustizie, non dimentico che fino a metà del ‘900 sugli Ebrei, sui Giudei, cadeva la condanna di deicidio, indistintamente. E quale colpa più grande può esistere al mondo? In un mondo che si prende così sul serio come quello cristiano-cattolico, gli Ebrei, vivendo, sono la negazione vivente del Cristo, del Redentore. Quindi dei cristiani. E’ un’accusa ontologica, che si portano in corpo. Solo l’intuizione di uno stato laico – puntellato dai sensi di colpa dell’Occidente, per aver visto e non avere fatto nulla – poteva avere corso e portare all’attuale Israele.
L’ultimo dei Giusti porta sulle spalle tutti i Giusti prima di lui che si sono annullati e fatti polvere per finire fumo nel vento, come cantava il Poeta.
September 15, 2012
this is a hard book to characterize. it begins in the 11th century with a Pogrom against the Jews. The family Levy who have one man each generation called the Just Man, travels all over East Europe searching for a place to call home and finally settle in Zemyock, Poland and find peace for a few generations. When the last son of the family, Ernie is born, it is the beginning of the 20th century, and most people knwo what happened to the Jews in the thirties in Germany and other countries invaded bu the Nazis. Leaving Poland, Ernie Levy goes to France, but his freedom is short lived when the Nazi's invade France. This is not an esy book to read, but if like me, you feel very strongly that such must never happen again, then I highly recommend this book.
March 1, 2012
This is one of the greatest books that addresses the Holocaust. The book is the generational story of Ernie Levy, who is one of the 36 Lamed Vav Tzadikim (just men) that exist at any and all time that keeps the world from ending by justifying the purpose of mankind (unknown as such by Ernie himself). A tall metaphysical order when facing life under Nazi Germany. Of course Ernie's existence is both difficult and very different from other men as he tries to relate to the world in general and finally to his responsibilities both as Jew and as a human being.
Terms like "powerful", "tragic" and "beautiful" will not prepare you for the story this book tells - it truly is one of a kind
Terms like "powerful", "tragic" and "beautiful" will not prepare you for the story this book tells - it truly is one of a kind
February 19, 2012
One of the most beautifully written novels of all time So sad, but one of those books you must read in your lifetime.
February 3, 2019
“Oh, Ernie,” Golda said, “you know them. Tell me why, why do the Christians hate us the way they do? They seem so nice when I can look at them without my star.”I read a review of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop a day or two ago, and the nice review said that the end of that book is "devastating." I had just finished reading The Last of the Just for the first time since college, and describing any book as "devastating" after Schwarz-Bart's beautiful, lyrical, strange, joyful, and truly devastating novel I'll have a hard time believing there are more than a handful of other books out there that are truly devastating.
Ernie put his arm around her shoulders solemnly. “It’s very mysterious,” he murmured in Yiddish. “They don’t know exactly why themselves. I’ve been in their churches and I’ve read their gospel. Do you know who the Christ was? A simple Jew like your father. A kind of Hasid.”
Golda smiled gently. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, no, believe me, and I’ll bet they’d have got along fine, the two of them, because he was really a good Jew, you know, sort of like the Baal Shem Tov—a merciful man, and gentle. The Christians say they love him, but I think they hate him without knowing it. So they take the cross by the other end and make a sword out of it and strike us with it! You understand, Golda,” he cried suddenly, strangely excited, “they take the cross and they turn it around, they turn it around, my God . . .” 323-324
The first time I read The Last of the Just as an English literature student, I was so saddened and haunted that for three or four days, when I thought deeply about it or, in particular, spoke about it, I wept. I didn't just get a little emotional. I wept. My boyfriend at the time, a history major, found it very irritating: he is Jewish and most of his mother's family perished in the Holocaust; his grandfather was hung in Baghdad for no reason except that he was Jewish and wealthy, and their neighbors helped smuggle his wife out of the country. He felt that any holocaust fiction is an insult, whether written by Primo Levi, Elie Weisel, or anybody else. He believed only non-fiction was appropriate, but no non-fiction holocaust history has ever overwhelmed and shattered me so completely. And besides, by the age of 13, André Schwarz-Bart was orphaned; his entire family died in extermination camps, so if anybody has the "right" to write such literature, I think he would qualify.
While I cannot imagine how Jewish readers must experience this novel, my experience was of course colored by my own Christianity; how can supposed Christians hate Jews so much? As a human being, I ask, how could any human beings, Jewish, Christian, or otherwise, kill other human beings in a way that no animals, to my knowledge, have been slaughtered -- en masse, in a mechanized way designed to simply destroy as many animals as possible in as short a time as possible?
The first part of this novel is lyrical, a retelling of the Jewish legend of the Just Men that every generation has 36 saints (lamedvavnikim) on whose piety the fate of the world depends. In this novel, the Levys of Zemyock are said to have a lineage of Just Men going back ages. Grandfather Mordecai explains it to his grandson:
"If a man suffers all alone, it is clear his suffering remains within him. Right? . . But if another looks at him and says to him, 'You're in trouble, my Jewish brother,' what happens then?"Here, the experience of the Christian reader is also profound, as Jesus himself is seen as the ultimate Just Man.
[the child replies] "He takes the suffering of his friend into his own eyes."
. . . "And if he is blind, do you think that he can take it in?"
"Of course, through his ears!"
The conversation continues: what if he is deaf, or "far away, if he can neither hear him nor see him and not even touch him--do you believe then that he can take in his pain?"
"Maybe he could guess at it," the child said with a cautious expression.
Mordecai went into ecstasies. "You've said it, my love--that is exactly what the Just Man does! He senses all the evil rampant on earth, and he takes it into his heart!" 174
Mystical beauty abounds in this book, interspersed with scenes of such cruelty and inexplicable hatred that I had to put this book down more frequently than many others; when it is lovely, it is almost as unbearable as the parts that show excruciating and unendurably hateful human actions, actions that, I might point out, while fiction here, occurred over and over again in "real life" during the Holocaust.
It is no wonder that so many Jews are now atheists; how could such a thing happen? Where was God? And how can people who profess a religion based on love of God and neighbor do the things they do? Why doesn't God stop them? I wish I knew.
A few more quotations, the more mystical parts:
"I am nothing more than an ant," the child said gently. . . . Then he closed his eyes, reopened them and delicately extracted Mother Judith from his brain. . . . When he had finished . . . he was sobbing at the surprising idea that she was a simple old woman, and bathed in his own tears he brought forward the person of his father . . . . At that moment, he succeeded in evicting all that remained of xx Levy from his own breast. XX realized then that his soul truly contained the faces of the patriarch and Mother Judith, of his father and mother, of [his brother] and perhaps also the faces of all the Jews in Stillendstadt. . . . "Let me stay tiny!" he cried, imploring, inarticulate. "Oh, my God, be good to me! Let me stay tiny!" 176-177
There’s a scene on page 292 where he finds himself in love with a prostitute who he has just met; then, in quick succession, it's another girl he simply sees and doesn't even interact with, "from Belle-de-Mai, the Negro section . . . Then another, milky white . . . Then it was another, then still another. . . . XX wandered like a troubled soul among the streets infested with faces, dotted with eyes like so many stars twinkling in his night" (292). He falls in love with these unknown women, but you sense that this is more than erotic passion; his passion is for all those with eyes twinkling like so many stars in the night; a profound love so overwhelming that he decides he must leave the city or he will be undone.
This is without a doubt one of the most powerful books I've read in my entire life. I think I can safely say it is the most powerful fiction I've read. I strongly recommend it, but with the caveat that it goes beyond simply "sad." It makes real the deepest possible sorrow for the inhumanity we are capable of; while I respect my friend's strong dislike of the very idea of Holocaust fiction, I don't think the Holocaust was *real* to me any more than ancient tragedies I had ever read about. After reading The Last of the Just, the plight of all Jews, those who were murdered and those left behind, seems more real and more unbearable, but it was worth the journey. It makes of all compassionate readers something similar to Just Men; in sensing all the evil rampant on the earth, I certainly couldn't help taking it into my heart and wishing I could be strong enough and willing enough to bear at least some of the most terrible suffering.
August 17, 2007
This is an epic book. Okay 383 pages isn't that epic but it covers a long period of time, from the 12th through to the 20th centuries. I have to say, from my point of view, the Jews vanished from history by the end of the first century and then reappeared just in time for the Holocaust. I never had any idea what happened to them and I was never that interested. This book redresses the balance. I would not pretend for a moment that it's an easy read but I would say it is a necessary one.
April 13, 2014
This book narrates the life of Ernie Levy, who in 1942 turns up at a concentration camp where Jews are being processed for extermination and seeks admission. But the novel starts more than 800 years before his birth. Out of necessity it is long, and it sprawls; but in its English translation from the French, the prose is beautiful, and the story accelerates. To me the book is timeless and perfect. I know that the impression it made on me is indelible.
September 4, 2016
À part de sa significance culturelle et historique, ce roman est incroyablement bien écrit. Et je pleurai beaucoup, c'est ne pas humainement possible de ne pas le faire. Pourtant je pris du temps pour lire cette livre, et les dernières pages étaient les plus dures à lire. Des semaines et des semaines pour lire la part Plus jamais. Et je vais le relire, une fois, deux fois ou encore plus.
February 10, 2021
The short, 19 page section I of the book backgrounds the legend of the just men, the Lamed-Vov of Jewish tradition who, often unknowingly, are "the hearts of the world multiplied, and into them, as into one receptacle, pour all our griefs." As the sole survivor of a 1185 pogrom in York, Rabbi Yom Tov Levy was such a man. Section I briefly lists successive generations of Levys up to the arrival of Chaim Levy at the small town of Zemyock at the end of the 18th century. The rest of the book chronicles the trials and sufferings of Chaim and succeeding generations of Levys, through the successive male heirs to the Lamed-Vov legacy; Chaim's son Mordecai, Mordecai's son Benjamin, and Benjamin's son Ernie, whose story occupies the largest and last part of the book and who bears perhaps the heaviest burden as the Lamed-Vov in occupied France during the Third Reich's Jewish pogrom.
While the characters are fictional, the book presents the prejudice and hostility that Jewish people encountered in whatever location throughout centuries. Yet other historical periods pale in comparison to the full out extermination efforts of the Nazi regime. The prejudicial treatment thus runs the full range from unequal civil and legal treatment to outright barbarity. Having too recently read The Warmth of Other Suns (where the oppressed are American Blacks) I cannot help but think the world may be a better place without the presence of the generally white leadership, too often coupled with and aided by many Christian religious folks, that have had a high disregard for the lives of those of a different color, race, or religious ideology.
main characters: Chaim Levy, Mordecai Levy, Mordecai's wife Judith, Benjamin Levy, Benjamin's wife Leah Blumenthal, Ernie Levy, Golda Engelbaum
terms: Pimpfe - Hitler Youth Pioneers; Pichipoi - Jewish belief/wish of a distant kingdom where Jews have a fresh start; Gribouille - simpleton
from the next to last page of the book: "...through the smoke of fires and above the funeral pyres of history the Jews-who for two thousand years did not bear arms and who never had either missionary empires nor colored slaves-the old love poem that they traced in letters of blood on the earth's hard crust unfurled in the gas chamber..."
While the characters are fictional, the book presents the prejudice and hostility that Jewish people encountered in whatever location throughout centuries. Yet other historical periods pale in comparison to the full out extermination efforts of the Nazi regime. The prejudicial treatment thus runs the full range from unequal civil and legal treatment to outright barbarity. Having too recently read The Warmth of Other Suns (where the oppressed are American Blacks) I cannot help but think the world may be a better place without the presence of the generally white leadership, too often coupled with and aided by many Christian religious folks, that have had a high disregard for the lives of those of a different color, race, or religious ideology.
main characters: Chaim Levy, Mordecai Levy, Mordecai's wife Judith, Benjamin Levy, Benjamin's wife Leah Blumenthal, Ernie Levy, Golda Engelbaum
terms: Pimpfe - Hitler Youth Pioneers; Pichipoi - Jewish belief/wish of a distant kingdom where Jews have a fresh start; Gribouille - simpleton
from the next to last page of the book: "...through the smoke of fires and above the funeral pyres of history the Jews-who for two thousand years did not bear arms and who never had either missionary empires nor colored slaves-the old love poem that they traced in letters of blood on the earth's hard crust unfurled in the gas chamber..."
July 17, 2018
a classic, but excruciating to read.
January 4, 2024
"'O God,' he thought, 'you have given me the soul of a cat; it must be murdered nine times before it dies.'"
April 17, 2021
Profound and important, this may be the best novel ever to take on the Holocaust. Simply, it's one of the best books I've ever read.
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April 13, 2023“And so it was for millions, who turned from Luftmenschen into Luft.”
According to Jewish tradition, each Just Man exists to justify the purpose of humankind to God by bearing the world’s pain. Follow the generations of “Just Men” from the Levy family, and in turn the Jewish people, from 12th century York, to the shtetls of Eastern Europe, and finally to a concentration camp. The majority of the book focuses on young Ernie Levy growing up in 1930s Germany.
Probably the saddest book I’ve read and the story of Ernie has been seared into my memory. The writing was literary and tedious at times, so be prepared to take your time…it will be worth it. Thought provoking, informative, and emotional, The Last of the Just should be a must read for all.
According to Jewish tradition, each Just Man exists to justify the purpose of humankind to God by bearing the world’s pain. Follow the generations of “Just Men” from the Levy family, and in turn the Jewish people, from 12th century York, to the shtetls of Eastern Europe, and finally to a concentration camp. The majority of the book focuses on young Ernie Levy growing up in 1930s Germany.
Probably the saddest book I’ve read and the story of Ernie has been seared into my memory. The writing was literary and tedious at times, so be prepared to take your time…it will be worth it. Thought provoking, informative, and emotional, The Last of the Just should be a must read for all.
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