Concentration Camp and Lifelong Scars

Once again Ray Kingfisher has written a book about the Holocaust that cuts deep into the human psyche. And listening to or reading The Sugar Men will butcher you, slicing deeply, wounding you, entering your heart, finding your deepest places of fear, hate and yes, hope and love. Told from a different perspective, the experience of a child, Susannah Morgan and her family who lived happily in Berlin, until things began to change. When Susannah heard increasingly tense arguments between her father and uncle about what was happening in Germany and the persecution of Jews, she was afraid. Her father, always optimistic about his beloved Germany, and her uncle, the realist, urging his brother to take heed and protect his family, until they all fled to the Netherlands together. And even that wasn’t enough. The harrowing tale of both families being carted off to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and what happened to them afterward is the bulk of the story. I learned some things that I hadn’t come across in all my previous books on WWII and the Holocaust. Such as the Jews taken to the concentration camps from the Netherlands didn’t all receive the numbered tattoos on their bodies, and only had the numbers added to the Star of David sewn to their clothing. And the most important and the thing that will stick with me, is that some of the guards were kind to the prisoners, risking their lives, indeed losing their lives, to sneak food to them. It is one thing to believe that not all of the men conscripted into Hitler’s army were willing participants, quite another to read of the courage and conviction to help. The story of Susannah’s rescue and the day the British military liberated Bergen-Belsen is so sad and touching, and the way the German soldier labeled her “The Lucky One”, which stuck with her, was fortuitous. The scars that Susannah carried with her throughout her life, as she fell in love and raised her children made me want to scream and cry. Her trip back to Germany to face her past, though not understood by her adult children, was the best part of the entire book. I so wished that Susannah could have made peace with the God that had preserved her through a living hell in Bergen-Belsen, but who am I to judge? Her meeting with her British liberator was absolutely superb. Excellent book, and one that everyone should read/listen to. Lest we forget.

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5 people found this helpful

Fantastic book!

A very thoughtful, personal story of a Jewish girl as she struggled to survive the Holocaust. I don't frequently cry while reading, but this story had me going several times. I'll be looking into other titles by Ray Kingfisher.

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3 people found this helpful

I cried

So powerful and well-written when she met Teddy I cried. The characters are so real and the scenes are easi!y imagined

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2 people found this helpful

Breath taking writing

This book will be in my heart for a long while. I just loved the narrator, who made the story alive.

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2 people found this helpful

Brutally Honest & Eye Opening

This book was excellent and I loved the narrator. This book finally helped me understand why survivors of the Holocaust often don't speak of the horrors of what life was like in the death camps. After the war, many people were told to put the past in the past and move forward. This shows how impossible it is to forget. This was right up there with the Tattooist of Auschwitz. Highly recommend.

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1 person found this helpful

Engrossing and poetic, yet …

It examined an important part of history - the impact on survivors and their families. Parts at the end got a little weird. It was definitely thought-provoking though.

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Amazing

This caught the tone and feeling of what it was like to be a prisoner in a concentration camp, the pain and suffering without being gruesome. I cared deeply about all the characters.

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We can never let history die.

The pain of history comes to life in this story, as well as the joy of life.

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Mixed emotions

I’m many ways the memorable story pulls us into a life it’s good to know about. Susanna’s suffering and survival are gut-wrenching and poignant.

But at other times the maudlin details of cruelty and unthinkable pain seem to grip us just to take us into her pain.

Susanna’s courage somehow gets a bit overtaken and lost because the emphasis is more about loss and deep. Horrendous pain in such graphic detail that we have a little trouble seeing the multi-faceted young woman and the courageous older woman.

Still, though I don’t want to go there again, I’m glad I knew her.

Jane Oppenheimer does an excellent telling and keeps us involved.

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Emotional reflections from our history!

Once again Ray Kingfisher weaves joy with tragedy. A good read for all ! Readers connect with existences in prison camps, and the effect on the women and men who lived and died through it all!

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