Book Review
Title: I Was A Child Of Holocaust Survivors
Author: Bernice Eisenstein
Publisher: McLelland & Stewart
Pages: 187
ISBN: 978-0-7710-3064-2
Released: September 2007 

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey (Ontario Correspondent - Canada) 

I can't stand it when people say they can't read books or watch movies more than once; they get ‘bored,' is their insipid excuse. Yet, I read about the Holocaust, watch films, have heard many of the same stories repeated by different lips, and I cannot seem to resolve myself to such a legislature. How can this factual subject matter not move people to read and reread? To watch and re-watch? To learn more, to connect with humanity and acknowledge the scary truths from all parties involved. I went into a store once and saw a numbered tattoo on a man's inner arm, with his sleeves rolled up slightly because of the hot day. When I enquired further, he quietly told me he was a holocaust survivor, an Auschwitz survivor; my body ran cold, but my heart wept. 

Some stories must be told over and over again, the Holocaust is one of them. The history of the Holocaust can be overwhelming at times, but it is those little stories of individuals who were so deeply wounded by the Holocaust that we should hear, as we can easily connect with tender moments of kindness among those who had nothing, or moments of respect for those who had been almost stripped of it. The ingenious and profound book I Was A Child Of Holocaust Survivors is one woman's journey through her family history that she committed to paper, with astounding illustrations to correlate.

Bernice Eisenstein balances between the child she was and the adult she is, in this storytelling version of her parents, their experiences during the Holocaust and their lives after the Holocaust. The book is both heart-wrenching and heart-warming; Eisenstein has made a beautiful portrait of an ugly family history. Eisenstein revels in her loved ones lives and community that you almost feel as though you are sitting in on a private family dinner where history and memories mingle together, where the candlelight flickers and shows the perfection in wrinkled faces and the dryness of hardworking hands as they express stories through gestures paired with the conversation. Eisenstein makes a touching family biography, and vibrant story that is both relevant, and exceptional, and should be read repeatedly.

Possibly one of the greatest books about the Holocaust, I Was The Child Of Holocaust Survivors, is as much a book about the Holocaust as it is about the after affects of it.  

Winner Of The Canadian-Jewish Book Award for Memoir.