From frozen tundras to veritable battlefields, a young yeshivah student escapes certain death in this spine-tingling yet eminently upbeat story of survival, faith, and ingenuity. This is the true story of Chaim Shapiro's adventure-filed odyssey through both war-torn Europe and Asiatic Russia. The author describes his many dramatic, and sometimes humorous encounters, as he flees from the Nazis, in a vivid and engrossing personal memoir.
Chaim Shapiro had an almost photographic memory and it shows. He sat down in his basement one day to type up his story and pecked his way through 800 pages before he was done. He told me that some of the better anecdotes were actually left out by the editors! As a fan of the book and every word in it, I was highly disappointed to hear that.
This is one of those books which you hear so much about in advance ("So inspirational!" "Absolutely fantastic!") that you are afraid that you will be disappointed. I happen to be friends with one of the author's grandchildren, which made me especially nervous to read the book. ("What if I hate it?")
I wasn't disappointed, and I loved it.
Chaim Shapiro was a teenage yeshiva student living in Poland at the outbreak of WWII. His years escaping the Nazis included adventures and misadventures which will have you turning page after page to learn what happened next. He depicts his friends - Jewish and non-Jewish - with such humanity and perception they will come alive for you. Probably one of my favorite books I've read this year.
Go, My Son From frozen tundras to veritable battlefields, a young yeshivah student escapes certain death in this spine-tingling yet eminently upbeat story of survival, faith, and ingenuity. This is the true story of Chaim Shapiro's adventure-filed odyssey through both war-torn Europe and Asiatic Russia. The author describes his many dramatic, and sometimes humorous encounters, as he flees from the Nazis, in a vivid and engrossing personal memoir.
More than a decade ago when I was the community librarian, I kept 2 copies of this all time best seller. All our subscribers loved this book and whole-heartedly recommended it to others. Whenever one of our subscribers was called up for reserve duty, he would come and borrow this book to engage himself during the long hours doing guard duty.
In this autobiography, Chaim Shapiro tells the story of his escape from Poland during the Holocaust how he ended up in the middle of Russia where he needed to constantly use his wits to survive and stay religious. Nearly every chapter includes the drama from near-death experiences and his rescue from these close-calls through quick thinking and Divine intervention.
The book also describes just how poor people were in Communist Russia where starvation was common and soap was a nearly unthinkable luxury. At one point Chaim is in Kazakhstan under a wagon hiding from people who want to kill him for stealing a bag of donkey poop. Where he was living at the time there were no trees and people hoarded donkey poop like gold in order to cook their food. It's hard to imagine such poverty.