The Little Liar by Mitch Albom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
From the book description:
"Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis never told a lie. When the Nazi's invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading to "new homes" where they are promised jobs and safety. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy goes to the station platform every day and reassures the passengers that the journey is safe. But when the final train is at the station, Nico sees his family being loaded into a large boxcar crowded with other neighbors. Only after it is too late does Nico discover that he helped send the people he loved—and all the others—to their doom at Auschwitz. Nico never tells the truth again."
This was a selection of my book club.
I don't really know what to say about this book other than it was one of the most moving books I've ever read. And I'm not really a huge fan of Holocaust fiction, being Jewish, since I feel that there's so many true stories to tell. But you can tell that Mitch Albom researched this book meticulously and used that research to write an almost completely accurate depiction of what happened during this time period and after.
The pain, the suffering, the survivor's guilt; it's all things you hear about from survivors. And the placement of the main story in Salonika was amazing, as the city's Jewish population was nearly decimated, but so few people know about its story. In fact, Salonika was eventually declared "Judenfrei," or "Jew free," by the Nazis, meaning there were no Jews left to deport or kill in the city.
Everyone should read this book to better understand certain aspects of the Shoah, like the history of Greek Jewry and its liquidation by the Nazis, the Iron Arrow, etc., and use it as a starting point to learn more about these important topics.
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