שואה שלנו

by Amir Gutfreund, אמיר גוטפרוינד

שואה שלנו מסופר מבעד לעיניהם של צמד ילדים ישראלים. זהו ספר שבורא עולם, ובה בעת מתעד אותו; זהו ספר שגיבוריו – ניצולי שואה טראגיים, מופלאים, ססגוניים – מצטלבים בו למסע היזכרות חושפני ועוצר נשימה. זהו ספר רציני ומצחיק ומלא דמיון – והכול עד דמעות. וזהו גם ספר – ובזה כישרונו העצום של גוטפרוינד – שמצליח לא רק להכניס את הקורא אל תוך הבלתי-נתפס, אלא גם לכבול אותו שם, ולו לרגע, ואז לחלצו חזרה.

Genres: Fiction, Holocaust, Historical Fiction, Israel, Jewish, World War II, Ebooks

439 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Hebrew name: אמיר גוטפרוינד

Award winning author Amir Gutfreund was born in Haifa, Israel in 1963. He earned a MA in applied-mathematics at the Israeli Technological Institute (ITI) and served as an officer in the Israeli Air Force for 20 years, retiring with the rank of Lt. Colonel.

His first novel, Our Holocaust, is based on his memories as a son of Holocaust survivors, and has been translated from Hebrew into many languages including English. "The World a Moment Later" was published in 2005 and has also been translated. Gutfreund won the 2002 Buchman prize from the Yad Vashem Institute as well as the Sami Rohr Choice Award from the Jewish Book Council in 2007. He was also awarded the prestigious Sapir Prize (the Israeli equivalent of the Man Booker Prize) in 2003.

Married with three children, Gutfreund lives in a small village in the Galilee, at the north part of Israel.

Reviews

[Ram · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book describes the story of the Holocaust as it is slowly revealed to two Israeli children:
Amir (author) and Effi.

While some of the scenes and some of the characters are based on people that the author knows and had known, other characters and incidents are fictive, based on real characters and incidents.


In a small neighborhood at the edge of Kiryat Haim, gather the Holocaust survivors. Everyone has a story and they are tough survivors with varying degrees of sanity.

Young couples who have tried to live in the neighborhood have abandoned it shortly.

Effi and Amir's parents are Holocaust survivors too, and most of their families perished. They employ the "Law of Compression", and adopt their distant relatives and give them the title of grandfather.

Grandpa Lolek, who fled to Germany and the Soviet Union, joined the (free polish) Anders army and survived the Battle of Monte Cassino.

His brother Heiinek , who survived the war as a child living with Polish farmers.
Grandpa Yosef, survived 12 concentration camps and after the war found his fiancée Feige. They got married and have a autistic son Moshe.
The lawyer Pearl, who was a well known lawyer in Lvov before the war , and who has a small hardware store in Haifa. At the back room of his store He collects tracking information of all the Nazi criminals who where not trialed or got away with a light sentence.

And various other characters:

The (Jewish) community of Sarakov and the (Jewish) community of Linov, two women who got their name because they are the only survivors of their community.

"Crazy" Hirsh who has no address and can be seen in the Neighborhood shouting "only the holy ones died in the gas chambers?"

And many more…..

A community of people who's life changed in the big bang of 1939.

It was an unwritten agreement not to tell the children about the horrors of the Holocaust and not to reply to questions from the children. They were told that they must reach the age.
No food was thrown away because "people died for one potato"

But these children were determined. They read in libraries, they listened to the shreds of information that they could gather and they used creative methods to slowly acquire the stories. As the book progresses, the children grow up, some of the survivors open up, connections are made and the stories are revealed.

The style of the book varies in accordance with the age and knowledge of the children.
At the beginning, it is scattered. The information is like a kaleidoscope of knowledge. There are leaps from issue to issue, time to time, character to character, memory to memory. Questions are asked, issues are mixed as expected from the point of view.

As the children grow up, things get more orderly and the picture of events slowly changes to a more grownup picture.

The prose is excellent and there is no dull moment. While the whole picture is sad and depressing, there are many amusing incidents and altogether, the book is very entertaining and very well written.

The bottom line is that this book gives you a very original view of the Holocaust, and a taste of the life of the second generation and I highly recommend it, practically to anyone.

[Siv30 · Rating 4 out of 5]

"ניצלת כי היית ראשון ניצלת כי היית אחרון, כי לבד, כי אנשים. כי לשמאל, כי לימין. כי ירד גשם. כי נפל צל. כי שרר מזג אויר שימשי" ויסלבה שימבורסקה זה זמן רב שאני שומעת שאני חייבת לקרוא את הספר, אבל לא תמיד יוצא. והנה בפתיחתו השיר של ויסלבה שימבורסקה שעוד אבין את הקשר שלו לשואה ובכלל לספר החזק הזה. קשה. שבוע שלם אני מתחבטת איך לסכם את הספר הזה. קשה לי לכתוב על הספר הזה כי הוא טילטל אותי עמוקות והצליח להגיע לנבכי נשמתי. קשה לי לכתוב על הספר הזה, כי יש בו כל כך הרבה ולפחות בחציו השני הוא גורם לקורא לחשוב על ידה של המקריות, האקראיות, על דטרמניזם וכח אלוהי ועל משמעות החיים. אפי ואמיר הם שני ילדים סקרנים שגדלים בצל השואה. אבל בשנים הראשונות של המחקר הקטן שלהם, הם מקבלים רק שברים, פיסות של התמונה המלאה. שבר לשבר הם אוספים כמו בפאזל ענק שחלקיו נאספים בכל ביקור אצל סבא יוסף. הביקורים שלהם דומים למינסרה שהאור עובר דרכה ומתפרק לחלקיו. כך הקורא מתוודע לפייגה, לסבא לולק, עורך דין פרל ועוד דמויות שמאכלסות עיירה דמיונית בצפון. ואז הם מגיעים לגיל. אפי נשארת אי שם מסתפקת בשברים שלה. אמיר אינו מוותר והרצון לדעת הופך למחקר שצריך להשלים. החצי השני של הספר הוא כביכול תיעוד הדברים שאמיר העלה בחכתו במהלך המחקר. לא הכל בספר אמת. אבל גם אם זו לא אמת צרופה, בוודאי היו סיפורים דומים וקרובים לסיפורים בספר. החלק הראשון משעשע, עם קריצה. החלק השני מכה בקורא ומפתיע אותו. אני לא הייתי מוכנה למה שפגשתי שם. אי אפשר לספיילר ספר כזה. יש בו כל כך הרבה פרטים שמחייבים התעמקות. כל כך הרבה סיפורים אנושיים ולא אנושיים שחושפים את הזוועה ומשאירים את הקורא נפעם ונדהם עם הכרה שזה רק קצה הקרחון. הספר גם נוגע בשאלות מוסריות קשות, על שיתוף פעולה של היהודים עם הנאצים, על איסוף עדויות, כמה מהנאצים ידעו באמת מה הולך? ועוד. אני הרגשתי שבחלק הראשון היה כדאי לצמצם. גם בחלק השני ישנם קטעים שבעריכה עקשנית יותר היו יכולים לרדת ובכך לשפר לדעתי את איכות הספר. הספר כתוב בשפה עשירה ולמרות שהוא עוסק בנושא כאוב, הוא קולח ובהיר. אני שמחה שקראתי אותו כי הוא שינה אצלי משהו בסיסי בתפיסת השואה. מומלץ בחום.

[Amiad · Rating 3 out of 5]

סיפור ההתבגרות של אמיר (בן דמותו של המחבר) כדור שני לשואה בשכונה שבה כולם ניצולי שואה והניסיונות שלו לשמוע את סיפור השואה ולהבין אותה.

כמו שאר הספרים שלו שקראתי, מדובר על אוסף דמויות מוזרות ועל סיפורן (שהפעם מזעזע). כן קראתי די ברצף (קצת במקביל לספר העיון מרד באושוויץ) אבל לא ממש אהבתי. הייתה חסרה לי עלילה אמיתית.

[Debra Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Amir Gutfreund has a surreal cast to his prose that fits the sort of world that produced the Holocaust. I generally avoid Holocaust fiction because when the truth is so extreme, who needs fiction, but this book is not completely fiction as will be obvious to anyone familiar with Holocaust accounts. Novelizing what I think is basically a memoir allows Gutfreund to go outside of the space-time continuum, and study it through a lens that is not so much detached, as spatial.

The book begins in the narrator's childhood in Israel a "generation and half" after the Holocaust, and Amir and a girl companion, Effi, become aware that the older generation lives in a reality to which they haven't been granted access because they are "too young to know." They become quite ruthless in their quest to find out, even to stealing an old woman's pills to bribe another neighbor to tell what he remembers. They know that most of their relatives, especially their too numerous "grandpas" aren't biologically related to them. Using the "Law of Compression, a wonderful invention of our parents, the first generation of the Holocaust…lacking brothers, uncles, fathers and mothers, they had done away with the requirement for precision." Families have been reconstructed with whomever was close at hand.

Even before anyone tells Amir and Effi anything, the layers of reality around them are obvious. It can be detected in the two neighbor ladies who are known only by the names of their liquidated villages. As the sole survivors, they have given up their original identities and personal histories, to embody their entire village life force. It is obvious in the wandering Hirsch, who cries out periodically, "Only saints were gassed?" The interaction of the Grandpas , most notable Grandpas Yosef and Lolek, is fraught with levels of innuendo from the hidden pasts.

Amir perceives that Grandpa Yosef is trying to resurrect the dead through the manipulation of time. If Grandpa Yosef can heal his friend (and sometimes adversary), Grandpa Lolek, by rewinding time to the point before his friend was stricken ill in Israel, then he might also reclaim his dead wife and son, and even the dog, Brandy, all lost after the Holocaust. If all this is successful, then it follows that maybe even the Holocaust itself might be rewound and undone. All you need is a little quantum physics and a mind that can manipulate it. The day Grandpa Yosef's son dies, the dog, Brandy, who was the son's companion disappears, but then the dog returns -- all who knew Brandy start seeing her everywhere as parts of other dogs. The metaphor of things lost but not obliterated, and possibly reclaimable as bits and pieces of something else is an underlying theme throughout the book.

But this is not a straightforward book with a single quest and resolution. The Holocaust is too big, it is galactic in its complexity. An ailing Vauxhall, a food blender that doesn't work, and Jewish pirates in Caribbean are all part of the explanation of how things happen, along with the question of how the Nazis found so many people willing to do horrible things. As Amir collects more information about the Holocaust and the people in it, he finds not only the familiar paradox of bad Germans and good Jews, but bad Jews and good Germans. He, and the reader along with him, must deal with the realization that people in each category escaped and lived lives after the Holocaust, and most significantly have descendants. These descendants may be the Nazi poster children who now come to Israel to plant trees and do research on war orphans, or they may be closer at hand, intertwined in one's own DNA.

DW

[Racheli Zusiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

וואו, איזה ספר. כתיבה חודרת, מדויקת, פורטת על כל מיתרי הלב. למרות שיש בו מאפיינים שבדרך כלל מפריעים לי (עלילה שהיא לא בדיוק עלילה, המון תיאורים, ועוד), דווקא פה זה מתאים, וקולח ומסתדר בול. ספר מדהים.

[Zek · Rating 5 out of 5]

ספר ביכורים מרשים ביותר, מה שמעצים את תחושת העצב על לכתו בגיל כה צעיר של סופר כה מוכשר. ממליץ לקרוא את סקירתה של סיוי (ראו לינק בהמשך) שאני לעומתה הענקתי לספר חמישה כוכבים... אני תמיד נותן משקל לספר ביכורים בהענקת ציון ולטעמי ספר זה ראוי גם ראוי לכך.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Liza Fireman · Rating 3 out of 5]

ספר שני מאת המחבר אמיר גוטפרוינד שאני קוראת לאחר ״בשבילה גיבורים עפים״. הסגנון סך הכל דומה, המוני דמויות, חלקן משונות משהו ומאוד צבעוניות, דברים מתגלים במעין אי סדר, זמנים מתחברים. בסך הכל מחמם את הלב ומשעשע כצורת כתיבה, אבל מאוד מבלבל.
בספר הזה, הסיפור מסופר מנקודת המבט של ילדים שמתבגרים, אך מוקפים בניצולי שואה, שעדיין חיים בצל השואה, ונתזים של נסיונם מרימים את ראשם כל הזמן.

הבעייה העיקרית בספר הזה, היו שישנן יותר מדי דמויות, יותר מדי סיפורי צד, יותר מדי סבים, יותר מדי קרובי משפחה. היה סיפור עיקרי אחד של סבא יוסף, שהיה מעולה ברמות. הסיפור הזה, על אחד שרד את השואה, עובר ממקום למקום בשירותם של הנאצים ושל יכולתו להתחבר עם סוג האנשים שטובים בלשרוד היה בהחלט ייחודי וקולח. בעיקר, כשסבא יוסף מדמיין כל הזמן כיצד הוא הולך לפייגה אהובתו, בכל מקום אליו יפנה. (לעומת פייגה המאכזבת ולא ב��ורה בשאר הספר).

לא ממש הבנתי למה הסופר בחר לערב את ענת ומשפחתה בסיפור הזה כפי שבחר לקראת הסוף. הספר היה יכול להיות אף יותר שלם ומושלם בלעדי החלק הזה, שהוסיף עוד עומס לספר עמוס ממילא.

יש המון המון דברים טובים בספר. אני מאוד מתעניינת בסיפורי שואה עוד מילדותי, והנופך ונקודת המבט, כמו גם החיים עם השואה אחרי השואה כתובים בצורה מופתית ע״י גוטפרוינד.
3.5 כוכבים שעם טיפה יותר סדר יכלו להיות יותר.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's probably unfair for me to rate the books I read in Hebrew, because the experience of reading Hebrew is difficult for me and detracts from my enjoyment of the book. It's hard to appreciate language and writing when you're struggling to finish a page in a foreign language and just want something to happen. Our book club leader promised us that the next selection is easier to read and more fast-paced, so here's hoping.

Having said that, I don't know whether I would have liked this any better in English. There was basically no plot, and I've really OD'd on Holocaust lit. Even if I hadn't, this book felt repetitive with all the different people's tragic memories. I hate to sound flippant, or to seem like I'm minimizing, but I found a short book like Elie Wiesel's "Night" far more gripping and powerful than this long, drawn-out conglomerate of lots of Holocaust stories.

[Amy Tubbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course it's sad because of the subject matter, but it also gives a different view on the holocaust. The focus is on children who were born after the holocaust and their struggle to understand what their family members went through. Most poignant for me was how people would adopt each other to become grandparents and grandchildren or aunts and uncles to replace their lost relatives.

The writing style is sometimes heavy but it's definitely worth reading.

[Froma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a marvelous book: witty, tragic, profound, entertaining; brilliant characters and mesmerizing story telling all in the context of two kids growing up (too young to know) and how they take different paths finally, when they grow up -- and find out. I taught it at Princeton university last semester in a Holocaust course for Comparative Literature, and although it should have been allotted two weeks instead of one, the book was a huge success.

[Kathryn Spurgeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough read

A difficult read, not only because of the horrific and researched details of the Holocaust but because I had a hard time following the timeline. It went back and forth a lot from past to present. Even then, it broke my heart.

[Toby Zidle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Our Holocaust" is a book I could identify with, both culturally and heritage-wise. As a Jew born just before the U.S. got into World War II, the Holocaust is engrained into my identity. Fortunately I was born in the United States and not in Europe. Otherwise this could have been my story too.

The first chapter (of three)is like looking back into my own earliest youth. The "Law of Compression" worked in my family also. I remember several aunts and uncles who may have been extended family in some way or who may simply have been part of the family's 'community'. The title Aunt or Uncle is likely to have been an honorary one. They are gone now, of course, but Tante Scheya still lives in a far distant memory that had not been evoked until the beginning of "Our Holocaust".

As a youngster, I do remember being told that I was not old enough to know about the Holocaust. I was also instructed not to ask certain members of our older 'community' about what happened during the war. The memories would be too difficult for them to relive. I saw arms tattooed with numbers. I was curious, but could not ask.

The second chapter, when Amir was old enough to ask, was a period of his digging, digging, digging. Other books, both fiction and non-fiction, have exposed the same dark, horrific examples. But Amir's talent makes these stories personal. You can really be in the same room with the story tellers. You can visualize and identify with the victims (those who survived, anyway).

Both sets of my grandparents came to America in the early 1900s. Some of their brothers and sisters came with them. But they left parents, siblings, and large families behind in eastern Europe. What do I know of them? Absolutely nothing. Had there not been a Holocaust, one would have expected that, sooner or later, there would have been some bit of communication between the old world and the new. There was a Holocaust and that communication never happened.

When I read Chapter 2, I am reading the stories of my European family with an intensity that other books about that period haven't brought to me.

In Chapter 3 (Yaniv), the author seems to have less of a narrative mission. The intensity lessens. He kept my interest but the story becomes more exploratory and rambling. The concept of the 'Lebensborn' has been fictionalized before ["The Boys of Brazil"?]. I'd like to know more. Still much of the third chapter brings a feeling of speculation, as contrasted with the hard-fact tone of the first two chapters.

I think a typical reader will feel a ramping down as the book comes to an end. An 'Afterword' notes how some of the characters, while based on real people, are fictionalized.

Perhaps my 'ideal' holocaust fiction can't be written. I feel "Our Holocaust" weakened at the end. It's a strong 4-star story that doesn't quite have enough to become a 5-star.

[Christine Rebbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously, this book is about the Holocaust, so it's difficult to say "I liked it" because how can you... There will always be harrowing and horrific aspects to Holocaust literature, but this one sets it in a different context, being from the point of view of two young Israelis, the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. They are aware of the Holocaust from their earliest childhood, hearing it talked about in hushed whispers, and their questions always met with the same reply, "You're too young; when you're older..." As the children grow, so does their knowledge about what happened, as they get their elders to open up more and more. Some of their truth-tellers were simply trying to survive in their communities and in the camps; others were involved more directly. Some of the stories will absolutely bring you to tears. You can tell there was a LOT of research put into creating this book, and you come to realize more and more toward the end that the story is in fact not just fiction but the author's life. I did not give this book 5 stars but only because some of the passages, I felt, were too long and too dry and didn't really advance the story. But that's probably just me. Other than that, I really loved this book.

[James Carmichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gutfreund is a terrific writer, is the first thing, even in translation. The book's opening pages, a description of surrogate grandfathers that his post-Holocaust generation in Israel has acquired to take the places of those lost in the Shoah, is funny and warm and immediately engaging in that very pleasurable way that starting a book that's actually well _written_ is so pleasurable. There is an extended portion, perhaps 3/4 of the way through, that is dedicated to lengthy recounts of actual WWII experience; for me this was the least strong section, only because the narratives were somewhat familiar and some of Gutfreund's voice was lost in the retelling of other people's stories. But when he is telling his story, which is ultimately about his internal conflict and difficulty in coming to piece with the massive atrocities of the Shoah and in particular how that legacy is lived in by future generations, whether it has been adequately punished, etc., the book is conflicted and bracing and ultimately redemptive in a practical way.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 'memoir' is awesome. If you've ever wondered just what happened in the camps during the holocaust, this is a must read. Herr Gurfreund has researched, gathered stories and experiences, and visited the places that these things happened in. Then using the facts he gathered had written a wonderful, although very sad, story about a family of survivors trying to deal with the memories, and traumas suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime. The stories of loss, deprivation, and terror will touch the hearts of all but the most jaded and I think it should be read by everyone. If we do not remember and recognize the past, we will be victims of repeated horrors. I highly recommed this.

[Avital · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely floored and humbled.
When did you last actually tear-up, finding a literary genius? I'm reading "Our Holocaust." I know, it's a beaten subject. The book is narrated by two Israeli children, sons and grandsons of survivors. This theme has been done a lot too. And yet, it's all new, amazing, funny and horrifying, different. If the translation to English is half as beautiful as the original Hebrew, it's still better than most contemporary books.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must-read. ". . . there isn't as much black and white in the world as we would like." p. 371. This book touched me deeply.

[Kipahni]

just couldn't keep my attention. maybe to try another time.

[Fran Hawthorne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe this book needs 400 pages. Maybe it needs to overwhelm the reader with tale after tale of Holocaust survivors--Grandpa Yosef. The rabbi of Kalow. Attorney Perl. The narrator's father. Uncle Lunkish.

But even if so, a crucial part of the basic premise is jarring, and the ending falls flat.

First, the important caveat: Whether done well or poorly, it's important to keep telling the stories of the Holocaust. As too many people deny it, and the next generation grows up not knowing about it, and the swastika becomes some sort of all-around symbol of right-wing patriotism -- there can never be "too many" books about the Holocaust.
(Personally, moreover, this novel was special because of the focus on the Lodz ghetto and the Chelmno death camp -- rare in Holocaust novels -- where my great-grandmother and other relatives were murdered.)

Here's the setup: The narrator (who has the same name as the author) and his childhood friend Effie, growing up in postwar Haifa surrounded by Holocaust survivors, decide that all of the community will be their honorary grandparents, uncles, and aunts, because their actual relatives were murdered in the death camps and ghettos. The two youngsters try to persuade their "family" to reveal their stories. Once the stories start pouring out, the narrator discovers a secret that shakes his assumptions.

The "family" community may sound charming. But the portrayal of a world of quirky, adorable, ethnic old people is patronizing and overused.

And the big secret leads ... nowhere. The narrator has almost no reaction.

But okay, I've read a lot worse Holocaust novels, in the process of researching my own book. This one is well-meant, written with great knowledge and love.

[Achyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

לפעמים אני מנסה לקשור את הספרים שאני קורא לדברים שקורים סביבי, בין אם בעולם ובין אם בחיים שלי.
את ״שואה שלנו״ התחלתי לקרוא ��צת לפני יום השואה, וסיימתי לקרוא היום, 09/05, יום הניצחון על הנאצים (בערך). אולם הספר, מלמד אותנו שבעצם מעולם לא ניצחנו. ההפסד האנושי נשאר, ויישאר לעד. כל החיים שלא חיו, כל האנשים שלא נולדו, וכל אלה שגם לאחר מכן נשארו מאחור.
את החוויה של לגדול לצד ניצולי שואה לא הייתה לי, מאחר ואני צעיר ומזרחי, אבל תמיד חשבתי על זה שהיא לא באמת עזבה אותנו - הסטראוטיפ על אשכנזים הוא שהם אנשים קרים, שלא עושים ארוחות שישי ורואים את סבא וסבתא רק כשזה מתקרב לירושה בשביל לקבל דירה. ההסבר הכי פשוט לזה הוא שרוב המשפחה של סבא וסבתא נרצחה, ואז לסבא וסבתא לא היה עם מי להיפגש לארוחות שישי, והטראומה הדורית התגלגלה. אני לא חושב שאי פעם נצליח להחלים מזה בתור עם.
הספר חשף אותי גם לעולם אחר, שמעולם לא חשבתי עליו - של הבגידה. היהודים חיו במדינות אירופה כאזרחים מן השורה, אפילו לרמת האליטה. הם לחמו בעבורן במלחמת העולם הראשונה, תרמו להן כלכלית עם ידע ועשייה מרהיבה, ולמרות זאת המדינה בחרה להשמיד אותם. לכן היום ״המדינה נגנבת מאיתנו״ היא אמירה - כבר נגנבה מדינה אחת, מי אמר שזה לא יקרה לאחרת?
המוטיב המרכזי של גוטפרוינד הוא שאזרחים מן השורה ביצעו את הזוועות, ואזרחים מן השורה תמכו בזה. הכאב של הבגידה הוא עצום, לא משהו שניתן לפייס בתקופת חייהם של שורדי השואה, וגם כנראה לא בתקופת הדור השני.
קריית חיים הציורית כפי שגוטפרוינד מתאר אותה נותנת חיים שלמים ופרספקטיבה על העולם בו הוא גדל בצורה מופתית.
ממליץ מאוד על הספר לכל ישראלי באשר הוא, ובכללי לכולם.

5/5

[Shahar · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.7 wow what a journey.
At first i did not like it . I didn't like the audio reader ,Yoav Yefet , that sounded like a voice from the 80s ( but in the end i was in awe of his versatile reading ), i didn't like the tale of Israel in the 60s 70s 80s with its odd characters and odd actions and didn't care much for the coming of age storyline even if it was of second generation Holocaust kids.
Reading Israeli literature i met all of these in Shalev , Grossman , Be'er, Danker and others .
i Kept listening because there is beauty to Gurfreund story telling and because i liked it that he tells the story of the aftershock of the Holocaust , of the waves of effects it has on its survivors their kids and their kids kids, but it really caught me when grandpa Josef started to tell its tale. Its somewhere in mid book but it makes all the pieces of the puzzle make sense, it kicks the book from 3 to 4 starts to 5 wow starts and from there i couldn't let the book go.
Its not an easy book , in so many ways . its not trying to be nice , it is thought provocative in the ways it shows the shades of grey in a world one wants to think black and white. It is a beautiful book , if one can say that on such a book.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amir and his sister Effi are growing up in the 1980s in a small Israeli town which appears, to them, to be inhabited by eccentrics and lunatics of their grandparents' generation, along with their actual grandparents - eccentric and lunatic themselves - who sometimes do not actually appear to be their true family relatives. They begin to understand that this all has to do with something called The Shoah, or Holocaust, which the old people survived some time back in ancient history in Europe, but which no-one will tell them about because they are not yet "Old Enough".

They set themselves the task of finding out about this apocalyptic event, using all means at their disposal, including bribery, to extract details from the elderly people who know. What they glean is some horrific close detail of individual experiences, but it is not until one of their adopted grandfathers falls ill, and another grandfather appoints himself guardian of the family memory and begins telling his story, that they begin to acquire a full overview of how they came to exist against horrible odds, and why so many of their survivor-neighbours are so mad, so terrified, so obsessive.

Neither Amir himself, nor Effi, are spared the consequences: Amir himself becomes an obsessive chronicler of his family's experience of the Shoah; Effi, seeking perhaps some positive way to compensate, becomes a doctor - but is incapable of forming a lasting, trusting relationship.

As a chronicle - Amir's own - of a family's and community's history, this is an old-fashioned epic novel. And despite its terrifying accounts of human suffering and depravity, it is also extremely funny in parts, particularly in young Amir's accounts of his oddball relatives. It is deftly written throughout, and although at several points I felt what I had already read could more than adequately stand alone as a novel, it makes a major contribution to Holocaust literature in its insistent grounding in its third-generation survivor's experience. Amir and Effi were, on the face of it, utterly ordinary children, but their entire natal and developmental environment existed in despite of a deliberate attempt to ensure that they had never existed. And the evidence of that was the old people who surrounded and nurtured them - however eccentrically - in their growing up.

[Anna Yadgarov · Rating 4 out of 5]

ספר עוצמתי ומיוחד, לעיתים מייגע עד כדי כך שחשבתי לנטוש אותו, אך בלי החלקים הארוכים המייגעים האלה לא חושבת שהייתי מגיעה בסוף לאותה רמת חיבור שחשתי לדמויות.
הילדים אמיר ואפי גרים בקריות בין ניצולי שואה, הם מבקשים להבין מה קרה להורים שלהם, לדודים ולסבים שהם אימצו לעצמם (הסבים האמיתיים נספו), אך נתקלים בשתיקה עיקשת מצד המבוגרים. הם “עוד לא הגיעו לגיל״. זה נהיה סוג של ספורט עבור הילדים, אובססיה, לגלות דברים בדרך תחבולה, עד שיום אחד זה חולף. ואז, אחרי שנים, כאשר אמיר משרת כקצין בצבא ואפי כבר רופאה, מעל מיטתו בבית חולים של סבא לולק, סבא יוסף מתחיל בסיפור חייו, הסיפור פורץ מתוכו כמעיין שופע, הוא מספר עוד ועוד ולא עוצר. כל הזכרונות שנדחקו מבקשים לצאת החוצה. הם הגיעו לגיל.
לקראת אמצע הספר כבר מתחברים לדמויות והסיפור זורם ומתפתח, ואמיר מדמה את עצמו לחיפושית שגוררת כדור שנאה שרק הולך ומתעצם ככל שיותר פרטים נחשפים. כמה מהחלקים הרגישו קצת מיותרים ומאומצים, ואלה באמת החלקים שהסופר המציא, דברים שלא קרו, אבל יש להם מטרה. הנתונים היבשים על העונשים הקלים שנשאו רוב הפושעים הנאצים הדהימו אותי. אבל הספר הזה גם מלמד לסלוח. התובנה שלו מזעזעת בפשטותה - שואה הייתה מקרה רגיל, הרוצחים היו רגילים (אמנם שטופי מח, שהאמינו שהם נעלים מאחרים… אבל אנשים רגילים, אידיאליסטיים) וגם הקורבנות היו רגילים. הפושעים גילו אמת אחת מדהימה - הכל מותר. וזה משהו, שבתנאים מסוימים יכול לקרות לכל קבוצת אנשים… חומר למחשבה.

[Hila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book I didn't read as part of a challenge, the Holocaust memorial day was approaching and I thought that maybe this year I will read a Holocaust book. It took me a long time to get into the book, a lot of backstories that I didn't feel like they are relevant or having any point, at some point I thought maybe I should abandon this book altogether. But, in the end, I'm happy I stayed, it got interesting nearly at the end of the book.
What I didn't like the most is the writing style, no actual dialogues or chapters, just a really long book. What I liked was the stories of the supporting characters, they were in the exact dose, not too harsh, not too gentle.

[Nechama Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A satirical, irreverent picture of a number of Holocaust survivors in a small town in northern Israel. I very much related to the children trying to understand what happened, as a grandchild of Holocaust survivors myself. The characters are quite funny, but because of the subject and their pasts, the humor is dark and also acts as a tool to advance the general grief and madness that pervade the lives of survivors.

[Eithan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really well written book about how the next generation of the holocaust survivors coped with their parents, their stories, behavior and memories. It's not an easy read and you'll get super outraged at times when Gutfreund would list all the Nazi criminals who killed and tortured 100's of people got away with few years behind the bars.

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moral of story good; style is rambling and disjointed

I think the author was going for train-of-thought narration, but I found it challenging to stay engaged In the story and connected with the characters.

[Sidney Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a slow start that is somewhat difficult to get through, but it sets up the rest of the book well. This was an interesting way to describe the horrors of the Holocaust and the impact it carried through generations.

[Pierre Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Si on ressent une fatigue à "voir" des images de la Shoah, ce roman n'aidera pas, et c'est mon cas. Ce qui n'empêche pas de dire que c'est un grand roman. Il en reste des images obsédantes, malgré un humour certain dans le récit. C'est tellement humain.

[Yossi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depressing