Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem

by Solly Ganor

Forty-seven years after he was found half-dead in the snow, following a death march from Dachau, Solly Ganor again came face to face with his rescuer Clarence Matsumura at a reunion of Holocaust survivors and their American liberators. That meeting proved a catharsis, enabling Ganor to
confront for the first time the catalogue of horrors he experienced during the Second World War. Beginning in prewar Lithuania, Light One Candle tells of the ominous changes that took place once Hitler came to power in 1933, of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul who wrote thousands of exit visas
for Jews fleeing the Nazi onslaught, of the brutal conditions in the Kaunas ghetto where Ganor spent most of the war, and of Stutthoff and Dachau, the concentration camps he was shuttled to and from in the last, desperate days of the war. Unflinching in its depiction of evil but uplifting in its
story of the survival of the human spirit, Light One Candle is a gripping memoir that waited fifty years to be told.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Memoir, Jewish, Family, Biography

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Greta G]

Is Solly Ganor an impostor?

http://isurvived.org/Ganor-Sugihara_P...

[Liane Wakabayashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solly Ganor's name is perhaps best known in connection with Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul stationed in Kauna, Lithuania who happened to catch 12 year old Solly's eye in the confectionary store owned by his aunt. A wink, a smile, a kindness that Solly even as a young boy recognized, prompted him to invite Consul Sugihara to his home for Chanuka. This would be Sugihara's first encounter with Jewish people but not his last. In the months ahead, as the situation for Jews in Europe became more dire, the fleeing Jewish refugees began lining up outside Sugihara's home pleaing for transit visas through Japan. Sugihara issued well over a thousand that led to saving more than six thousand lives. Tragically, Solly and his own family waited to late and were trapped inside Lithuania, thrown out of their own home, forced to live in squalor in an overcrowded Jewish ghetto that became nothing more than a holding pen on the way to grim execution and mass graves.
Solly Ganor writes in Light One Candle about how he managed to survive the war under the most dangerous of conditions. The courage of his mother, the heroism of his brother, the fearlessness of his maternal sister, the survival instincts and organizational genius of his story-telling father, the talents of his countless aunts and uncles and innocence of his younger cousins are the unforgettable lights in this memoir. Solly Ganor withholds nothing of their momentary triumphs against evil or the tragedy that most in his dear family endured on the way to their deaths. Beatings, tortures, loathsome dogs trained to kill, the humiliations, rapes, the child beatings, the mass graves, the firing squads, the starvation and frostbite, the betrayal of friends among friends, the clutching to survive in overcrowded camps and ghettos, the match, the light, the burning down of a hospital filled with Jews locked inside.
In such a hard-to-read graphic memoir, its only the heart of the author Solly Ganor's beating steadily that allowed me to proceed. I entrained with Solly's heart and his hope throughout the hellish four year ordeal that yes, justice would prevail, that the evil of the Nazis and too many European citizen collaborators would come to an end. Somehow with the help of God, you know that he is going to come out of this hell alive. But how?
The courage, coupled with a survival instinct, tripled by a sheer love of life, quadrupled by a revulsion for the evil before his eyes that he loathed but hardly feared, all help Solly endure.
"I promised Jakob that I would deliver the guns to Fima, and I intend to do that." I didn't tell them the guns were under our own house.
"But darling, you are only a boy! It is too dangerous!" Mother cried.
"Yes, Mother. It is too dangerous to be a a boy. Unless I become a man I will die like the other boys in the ghetto." She looked shocked at my bluntness.
"I will make it," I added more softly, and gave her a kiss.
She took me in her arms and cried quietly, gently rocking me from side to side lie she used to when I was small.
This powerful memoir is lit from within by candle after candle. Soul after soul. Gripping and shocking. I couldn't put it down.

[Lauren J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Solly Ganor tells of his life in Lithuania before the war and then what happens to him and to his family during the war. He tells this from a first person account and it is very vivid and compelling. His clear explanation of how things happened and why are very helpful to get the full impact of what is happening. This is one of the most gruesome and sad stories of the Holocaust making th reader question humanity. He also sheds light on the Japanese American soldiers that saved so many at the end of the war. Even though this is hard to read, it is so worth learning about the resilience of so many people.

[JKC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastating. Like reading a nightmare. One of the most horrific accounts of the Holocaust that I have encounted. Tells of the plight of the Lithuanian Jews, as well as their connection to the all-Nisei infantry of the US Army. I wanted to put it down many times - it was so painful - yet I said to myself that the least I can do for those who have suffered so much is to bear witness. It is the least we all can do.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s the unending, widespread face-to-face inhumanity and cruelty of the fascists all over Nazi occupied Europe that always strikes me about the Holocaust. Its victims were terrorised, some for years, before being murdered by people who were looking at the soon-to-die but not seeing them at all. That and the wonder of those who risked everything to help. Ganor is a great storyteller making this book ‘easy’ to read.

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is one of a survivor of the Holocaust. He lived in Lithuania with his parents and details their journey to try and escape Nazi's and those Lithuanian,s who hated their Jewish neighbours and were happy to help drive them out and the real reason they were there was to steal although the cruelty and violence they inflicted on their victims makes me think alcohol was very involved

[Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heart wrenching tale of survival in one of the darkest time in world history. The strength and courage of those who survived must not be forgotten. It is a hard read for many reasons, but I now have a deeper understanding of both the depth of human depravity and the depth of human suffering.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read 100s of accounts of WW2 and the holocaust by now, have toured Auschwitz, and I would rate this as one of the most thorough and powerful books I have read. It's painful and heartbreaking, and makes you shake your head in wonder of how a young boy could survive such agony and grief.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As painful as it was to read, I felt obliged to witness the horror, even years after the fact. Mr. Gabor is a fine storyteller.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could talk to Solly personally and ask him more questions about his story, and his family and friends. What a sad, sad, story. I couldn't stop reading.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the world goes to hell, this book should be a must read. It’s tragic what we humans can do.

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This compelling memoir by Solly Ganor focuses primarily on his time in the Kaunas ghetto and then Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The despair of those horrible years is made more real by the chapters of his family's prewar life in Lithuania, Ganor lets the reader know his family, friends and his pre Holocaust life as he knew it. That made the later loss of property then forced move to the ghetto, the murders in the ghetto and final move to concentration camps even harder to read.

The memoir also features the irony that at the end of the war, Ganor was rescued by a Japanese-American soldier, Clarence Matsumura. Ganor recounts Matsumura's kindness and efforts to ensure that Ganor did not suffer the fate of too many Holocaust survivors of dying shortly after the rescue. The memoir starts with the rescue and throughout Ganor's memoir there are interludes that describe what Matsumura's family was doing at the same time including the initial backlash after Pearl Harbor, the loss of their business and eventual internment in Wyoming
The memoir is difficult to read at times only because it is so depressing to read of so many of Gaynor's friends and family taken away by the Nazis and shot, but the lessons learned and the inspiration of the rescue make that difficulty more than worthwhile

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard to "love" a book about WWII and the holocaust. As painful as it is to read, this book is the true story of Solly Ganor, a Lithuanian teen who lives through the Jewish ghetto, work teams, and a concentration camp. It's all about what happened to him and his family and those around him, what he saw, and what he did to survive. Very well written and absorbing. It's straightforward and just tells it like it was, without moralizing or getting philosophical.

[Blanche_in_Lakeview · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a memoir about the Jewish Lithuanian Holocaust. It is a thought-provoking and necessary book -- to bring these deeds to light so that future generations may never have to suffer like this again. This book should be read in conjunction with William Mishell's memoir "Kaddish for Kovno." Although the two describe the same time period, each brings light on new situations and leaves the reader with much to think about.

[Mark Geisthardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very hard read, due to the content, of a very well told account of a young boys holocaust experience. Some humanity can be so extremely ugly while others can be so incredibly beautiful. This book speaks of both. It is worth the read but difficult at the same time. Thank you Solly for sharing your story.

[Elissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most gripping, horrifying and poignant accounts of Jewish life in the Ghettos and concentration camps during WWII. I couldn't put it down.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Holocaust book.

[Vintage Lady]

I loved this book. It was so amazing how he was able to overcome his tragedies. He is, I feel a hero.