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A review by jugglingpup
A Gypsy in Auschwitz by Otto Rosenberg
4.0
I got an ARC of this book.
I read pretty much every memoir I can about the Holocaust. It is that time period that I just can't look away from and need to know every single story about. This is the very Romani story I have seen get published. Seeing non-Jewish stories are rare. So I got really excited, though excited is probably not the right word.
The narration felt like Rosenberg was telling a story, which I get he was. But I mean it felt like we were sitting together over tea while he just told his story. There were little asides here and there. There was a lot of "oh yeah!" moments about remembering someone or explaining that he has seen a certain person since they got out of the camps. It felt so intensely intimate and confessional in a way that other memoirs haven't.
The story read very fast. There were not a ton of details. It was not graphic the way a lot of other memoirs have been. I hope that means that Rosenberg was spared from some of the horrors, but it also might just be that he was not willing to go that in-depth. It was fascinating just how much he was able to talk himself into and out of, which might be why he focused more on that. It made his story uniquely his.
Overall, it was a wonderful memoir. Intimate and necessary.
I read pretty much every memoir I can about the Holocaust. It is that time period that I just can't look away from and need to know every single story about. This is the very Romani story I have seen get published. Seeing non-Jewish stories are rare. So I got really excited, though excited is probably not the right word.
The narration felt like Rosenberg was telling a story, which I get he was. But I mean it felt like we were sitting together over tea while he just told his story. There were little asides here and there. There was a lot of "oh yeah!" moments about remembering someone or explaining that he has seen a certain person since they got out of the camps. It felt so intensely intimate and confessional in a way that other memoirs haven't.
The story read very fast. There were not a ton of details. It was not graphic the way a lot of other memoirs have been. I hope that means that Rosenberg was spared from some of the horrors, but it also might just be that he was not willing to go that in-depth. It was fascinating just how much he was able to talk himself into and out of, which might be why he focused more on that. It made his story uniquely his.
Overall, it was a wonderful memoir. Intimate and necessary.