The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie

In Alexie’s highest-acclaimed novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Arnold Spirit is a teenager living on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington, where everyone calls him Junior. As a baby, he was hydro-cephalic, which caused seizures, poor vision, and a perception from his peers that he was different. Most of the others on the rez picked on him, except his family and his closest friend, Rowdy. Rowdy was a tough guy and would fight anybody over anything, especially anyone who got too rough with Junior.

Beginning high school at the rez became a turning point for Junior. He got upset that the textbooks were so old his mom’s name was in them. He was suspended for throwing the book, which hit the teacher, Mr. P. During his suspension, Mr. P visited Junior and convinced him to get his education off the reservation.

Most of the Indians picked on Junior because he was different, and now they picked on him because he was a traitor for leaving the rez.

Reardon was Junior’s new school, it was twenty miles from the rez. Sometimes his dad was sober enough to drop him off and pick him up, but every once in a while Junior had to walk. He was the only Indian at the white school, and it was a rough start for him. He was half white at the rez and half Indian at the school. It took some time but Junior found his place after he realized he was as smart and athletic as anybody at Reardon. While finding himself there, he also lost some close friends and family back home. Rowdy believed he was a traitor and went for blood during the high school basketball game.

Reading this book, I was reminded of the character’s in NS Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, which focused on an American Indian’s struggle with modernization- living in the white world. It is a struggle between centuries of knowledge their family had taught them about their culture, or going outside on their own to try find a better life. A struggle of honoring ancestors to keep the culture alive or turning their back on them to leave the rez. It is a tough battle, and many on the rez didn’t fight it. They stayed and accepted life as they lived it.

The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury

The early culture of space sci-fi was built on a foundation which portrayed Martians as beastly killers attacking Earthlings with no remorse. However, in Bradbury’s 1950 novel, Martian Chronicles, we have a chance to think about what really might happen. How would humans feel if Martians came to colonize Earth? Would we defend ourselves? Would we welcome the aliens with open arms and help them make a home here? Another viewpoint Bradbury explores is the human pioneering spirit. He writes about humans exploring and settling on Mars much like the US Western Expansion through the 19th century. He reveals that humans are determined to take what they want and to make the land and culture adjust to themselves, rather than adapt to the new settings.

The first few chapters had a humorous tone. The humans sent the explorers to Mars, but the first three crews were killed in defense. In a dream, a woman saw the first rocket coming, and she talked to the captain of the rocket in her sleep. Her jealous husband overheard the conversation and resolved to keep his wife away from the mysterious visitors. He made sure she stayed at home while he went for a casual walk with his hunting gun (which shot shells full of bees!). The chapter ends with two shots in the distance and the wife solemnly welcoming her husband back home.

The second crew found themselves in a frenzy of Martian paranoia. Martians had used telepathy to brainwash each other. Many didn’t care that the humans arrived and found it more of an annoyance. They sent the captain and his crew here and there until finally a smart Martian welcomes them and sends them into a room to wait for him to return. The crew was dumbfounded, how could the the aliens not acknowledge that they have actually traveled through space? This was a major accomplishment! The crew met many Martians in the room they entered and soon realized that each of the Martians was delusional. The smart Martian was a psychologist, he returned and conducted interviews with the humans and determined that only the Captain was real and the other crew members were holograms to trick those who met him. The psychologist then asked the Captain to take him to the rocket as he suspected this was also a hologram, and then he could prove that the space travel was fake. After exploring the rocket, the psychologist knew it was the best mental projection he had ever seen. The Captain’s brainwashing telepathy was unlike he had ever seen before. He knew if the simply shot the Captain the rocket and crew would disappear- but it didn’t. It was the best projection he had ever seen. Even when dead, the Captain’s brain power still made him see the rocket and crew! So he shot each crew member, and he still saw it all in front of him. The only other explanation he could think of was he, himself, was projecting the imagery, so he took his own life in an attempt to stop the delusion.

The third rocket’s crew landed in a small town on Mars. Each crew member strangely recognized the village as their own hometown. Each also happened to see a deceased loved one they recognized in their fake hometown. The friends and family they met explained that they didn’t know how they got there, but they had died on Earth and showed up there. They tried their best to make it more like home with the houses and shops familiar to them from their past life. This Captain was very leery of it all, but dropped his guard when his brother showed up and took him to visit their parents. They had a wonderful meal and the captain held his mother close and danced in the living room with her for hours. At bedtime, the two brothers lay in the same room, when the Captain had a quick thought that it might be a trick… He decided to sneak back to the ship to wait for the others. The Captain crept across the floor toward the door when the brother suddenly killed him. The following morning, the entire town of Martians held a service to bury all the dead human explorers.

Further into the book, similarities between the real pioneers and the characters in MC are more apparent. A character resembling Johnny Appleseed saw a need for oxygen production in the early days of humanity on the red planet, so he devotes himself to the task. A husband and wife build a business selling hotdogs at an intersection of two major roads. Priests believe the Martians need saved so they join the adventure and send missionaries to the planet. Bradbury said Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was a major influence on the Chronicles and with the mass migration the states saw in the 1930s, one can find many parallels between the two works. The Martian Chronicles was a very imaginative work 70 years ago, and can still captivate audience today, making for a very enjoyable book.

The venture, Mars One, plans to turn The Martian Chronicles into reality with a mission to create the first permanent human settlement on Mars.  You can find out more here.

The Quick and the Dead – Louis L’Amour

The day finally came when the McKaskel family set out upon the Santa Fe Trail. Duncan, his wife, Sarah, and their son, Tom, had only known the city life back East. Both parents were educated and Tom was eager for adventure just like any teenage boy would be. Little did they know how much adventure they would find.

All of the education they gained in life would not be enough to secure their survival on the dire trail. Within the first week, the horses were stolen. Surely they would have had to turn back if the hero, Con Villain, hadn’t shown up. He was only passing through, but that pretty woman, Sarah, sure made a great cup of coffee.

The McKaskels weren’t sure what to make of Con. Was he just waiting for the right moment to rob the family himself? Little by little, Con earned their trust. First of all, he never had to follow Duncan to the outlaw’s town to retrieve the horses. He especially didn’t have to shoot the man in the barn aiming to shoot Duncan in the back. Con didn’t even have to stay with the McKaskels when the Indians came to visit. But he did all of those things, and the McKaskels slowly began believing he was on their side.

With his help, the family gained a different knowledge. They learned things that had not been written in the books they read. The horse thieves followed them on the trail and Con always helped the McKaskels stay a step ahead. One night, they were split up by the outlaws and Sarah figured they might not ever see Con again. If it were true, would the family make it on their own? Would they overcome the struggles of the trail or would they become like the thousands of unmarked graves on the dangerous route?

A classic Western, The Quick and the Dead has been made into movies and is one of Louis L’Amour’s most popular works. The suspense keeps the pages turning to find out if the family survives, if Indians attack, if outlaws return, and if Con Villain would be their savior, or a wolf in a sheep’s skin, which provided a great read.

Veronica Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho

As morbid and depressing as the title seems, this Paulo Coelho book takes the usual turn in his books: looking for understanding of the universe and an inspiration for readers to strive not to settle into the kind of routine they don’t wish to be in. Coelho’s books have been NY Times Best Sellers and translated into dozens of languages, he’s one of the top-selling modern authors. It just takes one book to understand why, and this book certainly fits into that category.

Veronica is a young woman with a happy life. She has loving parents and a nice job. She lives in Ljubljana, the capital city of the newly formed country of Slovenia (after the Yugoslavian Civil War). With as many positives points in her life, Veronica found nearly as much sadness. She believed the routine of her life was inconsequential and secretly vowed to kill herself to leave the world behind. After feigning sleeplessness, she collected strong sleeping pills and went about the deed. She slowly fell into a drowsy state, but the peaceful death was not coming. A burning throughout her body led her into a coma and she woke in the infamous Villette Hospital, an institution for the mentally insane. Upon waking, the doctor told the girl she would survive, but her heart had taken a toll from the suicide attempt. The state her heart was in would only leave a week of life before she succumbed to the death she had wished for.

Not to give too much away, Veronica reluctantly made friends and rediscovered her passion for the piano. In fact, her piano playing was said to lift many spirits in the gloomy hospital. With a week left to live, what would you do? Veronica searched for her soul and others joined. Her weak heart pushed the limits and she found herself having heart-attacks through the week.

In a previous interview, Coelho explained his need to write this book. He had been put into a mental asylum himself as a young man. Coelho even modeled a character in the book after himself. His parents expected him to become an engineer, but his thirst for writing could not allow him to complete the studies the family expected of him. He broke out of the institution and the rest is history.

Whether you’re feeling ‘in a rut’ or just enjoy Coelho’s books, this is a good read. Coelho never lets you down, enjoy!

The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein

It’s easy to love this book, but hard to find a place to start explaining it. Anybody who has had a best friend with four legs and a wagging tail will understand immediately. The Art of Racing in the Rain is a story of a race car driver, narrated by his best friend, a dog named Enzo. The story moves through highs and lows but they stick together through it all.

The story alone is gripping, but told through the perspective of a loyal dog-friend adds even more to it. Denny and Enzo both loved racing, and together they spent a lot of time watching race videos, analyzing them and learning how Denny could become a better driver. Enzo loved it! All throughout the book, Enzo was relating race mantras to the readers:

“The car goes where the eyes go.”

“There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you’re afraid to lose.”

“It makes one realize that the physicality of our world is a boundary to us only if our will is weak; a true champion can accomplish things that a normal person would think impossible.”

“That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”

Enzo is a lab mix, who dreams of the day his soul will be reborn as a human. He has so much to say, but a long flat tongue gets in the way, so he uses gestures to the best of his ability to get his points across to his human. His ‘master’ is Denny, a young race car driver who has dreams of becoming a professional. After a couple of years as bachelors, the pair meets Eve, a woman who Denny eventually marries, and they have a daughter, Zoe. At first, Enzo is a little weary of Eve, who he sees as a woman taking his friend from him. This view changes as soon as Zoe is born and he realizes they are all in it together. After six years of marriage, Eve is diagnosed with a brain tumor, a terminal diagnosis. Enzo feels bad because he realized she had cancer before the diagnosis, but the shape of his tongue wouldn’t allow him to warn the family in a way they understood. While she’s in treatment, Eve’s parents are helpful and watch Zoe a lot, and even offer to bring Eve into their home for hospice-style care toward the end of her battle. Denny is reluctant but knows they have the time and money to help her, so he supported Eve’s decision to stay with them. Soon, they also point out that Zoe should spend more time with her mom before she loses her, and again, Denny reluctantly agrees. Eve eventually passed and Denny was heartbroken. To make matters worse, Eve’s parents present Denny with a custody suit for Zoe. Denny was confident that there wouldn’t be much of a case for his daughter staying with her grandparents, but a ghost in Denny’s past came and the cards were soon stacked against him. He had to spend his life savings and go into debt to fight for his daughter.

I can’t say I’m much of a race fan, but this book was much more than that. As I finished, I sat the book down and thought of all of my dog friends I had growing up with fond memories, and imagined them running through endless fields with their tails wagging. It has been one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote

This morning, I read Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a novella by Truman Capote. I read In Cold Blood several years ago, and find some similarities in the characterization, but little else as the narrative follows a fictional relationship between two people in New York. It was a nice, short read. The characters were pitiful, but that just makes you love them more.

The narrator, a young writer, is pleased with finally finding a home of his own in a brownstone apartment in New York. A neighbor has moved in, a young woman named Holly Golightly, who spends days sleeping and nights entertaining older gentlemen. Holly is a character if there ever was one, a self-described nut who ran a way from her Texas home at fourteen. She had married the horse doctor who had taken her in, but ran away because she never felt at home. She went to Hollywood and was on the verge of becoming a star when she ran again to New York. She went on many dates and flirted money right out of the pockets of wealthy older gentlemen. Holly ended up with a Brazilian diplomat, preparing to marry him and move to Rio when her world came crashing down as she was arrested for involvement with a notorious gangster. The gangster, Sally Tomato, was visited by Holly every Thursday, she unknowingly delivered coded messages to him because she thought the ‘weather reports’ were a cute game. Pregnant and shattered by the news of the diplomats decision to leave her, she decided to take the flight to Brazil anyway and leave it all behind, facing indictment for fleeing the prosecution.

The two central characters, the narrator and Holly Golightly, were polar opposites. The narrator was proud to have a place to call home and Holly was never able to find a home to settle in. This freedom and stability issue was continuous throughout the text. One Christmas, they exchanged gifts. Holly gave the man an elaborate birdcage, a home for avian, while he gave her a medal of St. Christopher, the patron saint of safe travel. At the end of the book, Holly sent a post card stating she had found a home in Buenos Aires. The narrator had spent much of his time traveling the world, so now their roles were reversed.

The Stranger – Albert Camus

The main character of The Stranger is a young Frenchman, Meursault, who lives on his own, working a trivial job. The story opens with news of his mother’s passing. She lived nearly 80 Kilometers away at the elderly home he had sent her to live as he had little income to support her living at home with him. He was disconnected from his mother; the time they spent when they lived together was uneventful, each having nothing to say and wishing to be elsewhere. At the viewing and funeral, Meursault had not wished to see his mothers body, and had not cried, which gave the appearance of indifference. Upon returning home, he began an affair with Marie, a woman who used to be his coworker. He thought she was incredibly beautiful, but as she asked him for marriage, he again showed indifference to their future.

Meursault’s friend Raymond lived across the hall in their building. He was involved with a woman who cheated him and asked Meursault for help in writing a letter to her to have some cathartic revenge. The woman returned to Raymond’s apartment and he beat her. The woman’s brother was an Arabic man who began keeping a threatening eye on Raymond.

One day, Meursault, Marie and Raymond went to Raymond’s friend’s beach house. After a day of swimming and eating, the men went for a walk on the beach and ran into the woman’s brother and his friend. A fight ensued. Raymond was cut with a knife and went to the doctor. Later that day, Meursault was still on the beach and was suffering from the heat. He considered going up the stairs to the beach home, or back to a cold spring (where they last saw the men who fought them) to cool off. He started walking to the spring and found the Arabic man there. The blistering heat got to Meursault and as the Arab’s knife flashed a ray of the sun into his eyes, Meursault began shooting him.

The second half of the book relates the time leading up to Meursault’s trial for killing the man. He was seemingly indifferent the entire time. His lack of desire to fight for himself and prove his innocence led Meursualt to being charged with the crime and sentenced to the guillotine.

The book had a sense of indifference throughout. Meursault did not care much that his mother died. He did not care whether he married Marie or not. He did not really seem to care whether he was found guilty of murder or not. In the end, he was resigned to the fact that we are all born, we all live a meaningless life, and we all must die. The melancholy of triviality that lasted throughout the book ended in his final realization: Meursault was finally happy.

The Great Train Robbery – Michael Chrichton

Author of the world-famous Jurassic Park, Michael Chrichton penned the novel The Great Train Robbery, a true story about an infamous 1855 heist. This was a major event in England for several reasons. Firstly, the trains were a new technology in Victorian England, and nobody had thought to make such a daring robbery on a train line. Secondly, the plan was well thought out and spanned a period of over a year in preparations. Finally, it took nearly another year of detective work to track down the mastermind of the event.

Chrichton did his research well on this event and presented a narrative of the event from the perspective of the criminals, in a style similar to what Capote had done in the Kansas crime novel, In Cold Blood. The leader, Edward Pierce, was continually described as ‘the red bearded man.’ He had the appearance of a gentleman and few suspected him to be a criminal, as most believed Victorian criminals were of the lower class. Pierce created a master plan to rob the London train heading to the coast with a load of gold intended to pay troops in the Crimean War. While he collected information, he also rounded up necessary men and women to aid the heist. As he hired the men he needed, he told none of them of the impending robbery details, just what their particular job would be. He hired Robert Agar as a lockpicker early in the preparations and left him in the dark as they worked together to bring the plan together.

The robbery entailed robbing the trains on-the-go. In a special guarded and locked car sat two state-of-the-art Stubb’s safes, which had two locks apiece, requiring four keys to get in. The four keys seemed to be the most difficult part of the preparations. Two were locked in a cupboard in a guarded office, and the two others were each held by managers of the bank who were employed to supply the gold shipments. One man was seduced by a young prostitute to obtain the key, the other was burglarized at home during the night, the key found hidden in his wine cellar. The other two keys in the guarded office took an elaborate scheme. Pierce hired a boy to act as a thief, who ran into the office and broke a ceiling window in a failed attempt to escape. Pierce’s cab driver, a large brute with a noticeable white scar on his forehead, acted as a policeman to chase the boy and take him away safely without any real repercussions. Later that night, a man Pierce had hired for his climbing ability and agility climbed through the broken window and into the room to unlock the door. Agar then waited until the guard went to the bathroom and ran into the unlocked room and made wax copies of the keys, returning to his hiding place on the platform before the guard returned. Several months later, after careful planning, Agar and Pierce were ready for the big day. Agar was disguised as a corpse in a coffin to be loaded into the guarded car. Agar had met the guard a few months before as he practiced unlocking the safes and the guard had been paid off and was believed to be no threat to the operation. Pierce boarded the train in the second-class cars and had one all to himself. During the route, he climbed onto the roof of the speeding train and walked across to the guarded car, where he unlocked the door from the outside. The gold was bagged and thrown off the train to Pierce’s cab driver. Bags of lead shot replaced the weight of the gold and the safes were locked up again, and everyone returned to their original places as well. The train delivered the safes to a ferry crossing the English Channel, then they were transported to Paris to pay the troops. It was in Paris the guards discovered that something was amiss. The train blamed the Parisian government, the ferry blamed the train, and the British and French governments blamed each other. After such careful planning, nearly everything went according to plan.

Over a year later, a lady friend of Agar’s was caught robbing a drunk man and when begging and bribing didn’t get her out of police custody, she gave up information on Agar’s involvement in the robbery. Agar was apprehended, which led police to the train guard and then to Pierce. The trial was a national event, however, it was overshadowed by the Indian uprising against British troops on the Indian peninsula. Pierce was cool, calm and collected the entire trial, explaining in detail his plan and the execution of the robbery. After the sentencing, Pierce was taken into a police cab to be taken to jail. The guards woke up and reported that they don’t remember anything but a large man with a white scar on his forehead beating them. Pierce, his mistress (who was involved in the robbery) and the cab driver made a clean escape and were never heard from again.

Rating: 9/10

Survivor – Chuck Palahnuik

What’s up Chuck? Survivor is the fourth novel from the Fight Club creator, featuring a cult in which the last remaining member is fighting with internal struggles, along with the pressure of the outside world as he is trying to avoid suicide and chemical inhalation, which may sound familiar to fans of Fight Club. While there are a few similarities between Palahnuik’s critically-acclaimed novel, this is the story of Tender Branson, a 33 year-old man who is just trying to get his story out to prove his innocence. He is telling his story into the ‘black box’ of a jumbo jet that is careening down to the middle of the Outback of Australia. Branson hijacked the airplane and had the pilot land to let off passengers. Then, they took off again, later forcing the pilot to parachute down to safety somewhere over the Pacific. Branson had just a few hours to record his tale into the device before all four engines would fail and send him plunging to his death.

The story began with Branson in the small, secluded church community of the Creedish. The oldest sons are betrothed to young women of the elder’s choice, while all other males in the family are sent off in missionary labor in the real world. The ‘missionaries’ work cash-only jobs, sending their pay back to the village, pretty much a form of slavery. The missionaries are forbidden to have sex, marry or have kids, and they are given a small apartment to live in and only set up with menial jobs like house cleaners. Tender was the second-eldest son, by three minutes. While his twin brother took a wife, Tender was sent into the wild city to work as a house keeper. He knew how to take any kind of stain out of any kind of surface- like how to get blood out of silk pajamas, and mildew out of tile grout. His employers often phoned him to find out what was being served at upcoming dinner parties and how to eat it, in terms of etiquette. The employers also had a daily planner book, filled out to the minute, for several weeks out. They were demanding, but Tender was good at his job and didn’t ask questions.

Eventually at the age of 33, Tender heard of the Creedish ‘Deliverance’. All members of his family and church had committed suicide. The church was reported as child abusers and the entire slave labor program was uncovered. Tender was assigned a case-worker as part of the Survivor Retention Program and they had weekly meetings to talk and make sure he was OK. As other members heard of the Deliverance, the faithful pupils they were, they took their lives to be delivered into heaven. Tender knew of the plan, but was not very interested in it, and kept living his life. Soon, he met Fertility Hollis, and began a strange relationship with the clairvoyant girl. Fertility had dreams about upcoming disasters- explosions, plane crashes, fires, a chandelier falling, etc. She took Tender to a department store to witness a fire. They watched as the racks of clothing around them burned in a fury until the sprinkler system kicked in and kept them safe, she knew they would be safe, of course. A freak accident with his case-worker breathing deadly fumes led the media into discovering that Tender was the sole-survivor of the Creedish cult, or so they thought.

An agent took in Tender and transformed him into a media frenzy. There were books written, TV appearances and even a dashboard doll made in the likeness of Tender Branson. Tender’s public image was portrayed as a religious icon and his books were best-sellers. The agent had him taking steroids, tanning, his teeth were capped, he had botox injections, the works. They often traveled to stadiums to speak to the followers. Much like the cleaning job, his schedule was forced upon him task-by-task, down to the minute.

I’ll leave the summary here, as Tender runs into trouble and finds out he’s not the actual sole survivor of the Creedish. Everything kind of blows up in his face, and as mentioned before, he ends up hijacking an airplane to get his story told, once and for all.

The book was very hard to put down, making it a quick read. The fun factoids and details that appeared in the Fight Club were in full-effect here as well:

How to get bloodstains out of a fur coat: cornmeal and brushing the wrong way.

How to get blood stains off of piano keys: polish them with talcum powder.

How to hide bullet holes in a living room wall: toothpaste.

These were a fun part of the book. I also enjoyed the entire count-down theme. The chapters were in descending order, even the page numbers counted down to end at page one. As Tender tells his story, you are reading a countdown to the present part of the hijacking. This is a creative novel, and even though some of the characterization seems to mirror Palahnuik’s Fight Club, it is still an original read that puts you on the edge of your seat to find out how Tender’s fate brought him to his lonely flight.

Rating: *********(9/10)

Twitter.com/blookworm

A Lucky Child – Thomas Buergenthal

I’m always intrigued by first-hand accounts of the Holocaust. Thomas Buergenthal’s memoir, A Lucky Child, is no exception. This is a unique story, a work of non-fiction in which a child survives life in an infamous concentration camp. He was ten years old when he was finally liberated from Sachsenhausen in 1944. He survived over two years in the harsh conditions of these labor (concentration) camps as a child. Most children in those camps were collected upon arrival and killed in the gas chambers. He considers it nothing but luck that he and his father were witty enough to get around the fate that fell upon so many others of Thomas’ age. At the first camp they were sent, Birkenau, Thomas’ father was chosen as a factory manager and stated that his son was useful. Thomas mustered the courage to let the commander of the camp know that he could work! Thomas had several close calls as the infamous Dr. Mengele sought out children or special cases to perform ‘scientific experiments’. Thomas’ father taught him to line up for morning counts near the doors to the barracks and then sneak back in as soon as counts concluded, to avoid selection if possible. Thomas also spent time in Auschwitz before moving to his final camp in Sachsenhausen. During that final march, the cold took two of Thomas’ toes with frostbite. He spent a few weeks in the infirmary, scared to death as that is the most likely place for SS guards to round up people to exterminate. When he was nearly healed, bombs dropped in nearby Berlin and the camp was liberated.

While in the infirmary, a man known as Odd Nansen visited often. He shared candy and bits of food with Thomas, even bringing him some books to try to get him started with education as the war had taken that opportunity away. Later, during the reconstruction, Thomas was reunited with his mother after a year in a Polish orphanage (his father died with unknown circumstances in the camps). While he was with his mother, they told each other their many stories, reconnecting after all the time spent apart. Thomas mentioned in fondness of the kind man who had helped him in the infirmary and soon they came upon a news article about Odd Nansen from Norway. Thomas wrote Odd Nansen and reconnected with him, visited him in Norway, and was proud to learn that Odd Nansen had published his personal diaries from the camps, and ha dedicated them to young Thomas. Thomas had become somewhat of a celebrity!

Buergenthal spoke of many friends and family he lost during the war. Many times in the book, he sadly stated that ‘I never saw or heard from him/her again.’

As he was reconnected with his mother, he wrote ‘I could be a child again.’ He had spent years of his childhood thinking and surviving as an adult. He had no chance to play or let others take care of him. It was quite a relief to know that his mother was there for him again. A tutor was hired to help Thomas catch up with his peers and the man realized that academically Thomas was far behind, but in maturity, the camps had made him think and act much more like an adult. They had many adult conversations and discussions about the war, the strategies, the losses. At first, Thomas wished to have a mounted machine gun to shoot all the Germans he saw walking the streets, but after further reflection, he realized that would not accomplish anything. Like many other survivors, he found that a dedication to the improvement of human rights was a paramount cause as he had seen first-hand how low humans could go without help from others. As he wrote in the book:

“I began to think that it was important that individuals like Nansen and the rest of us who had been subjected to terrible suffering at the hands of the Germans treat them with humanity, not because we sought their gratitude or to show how generous in spirit we were, but simply because our experience should have taught us to empathize with human beings in need, regardless of who they were. At the same time, of course, I was convinced that those Germans who ordered or committed the crimes the Nazis were responsible for should be punished.”

Thomas Buergenthal left West Germany in 1951 to study law in the US. He became focused in human rights law and served as a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, worked at the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland and eventually served a ten-year tenure as the American judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He is currently a professor of international law and human rights at the George Washington University Law School.