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The Journal Of Hélène Berr (2008)

by Hélène Berr(Favorite Author)

4.02 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0771013132 (ISBN13: 9780771013133)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

McClelland & Stewart

review 1: The book has two sections, the beginning, at first seems a bit superficial. Helene discusses people visiting, hanging out with friends, all the things a typical young college student would be doing during this time period. Yet she also provides valuable insight to the times. She discusses her struggle to wear the Star of David in June 1941 and she notates the reactions of people on the street. Through her eyes you experience the slow rescinding of rights and abilities of the Jews in occupied France. The second half of the book, was in my opinion, the most insightful. Because she is writing this as events take place you see through her eyes the darkening of Paris as the war drags on. You feel Helene's daily fear of arrest, not just for herself but for those around her.... more You learn scattered details of events in the same way Helene would have and it gently reminds you that information was not as easy as simply picking up a condensed history and having it all there. The hardest part is to read that somehow Helene knows she will not war.I read this book as part of a Study Abroad trip on the French during World War II. I visited Paris afterwards and walked the streets Helene walked trying to imagine it in the 1940s. It was extremely powerful to realize the house / apartment in which she lived is only about a block and a half away from the Eiffel Tower. The Velodrome d'Hiv stadium that was used to detain Jews after the July 16-17, 1942 roundup is only about 6 blocks to the other side of the Eiffel tower. A distance of maybe 10 blocks apart and she had so much trouble finding out information about the roundup. Although she discusses some details of her job with the UGIF in the book, I was disappointed she didn't add more details about the children she saved by hiding them in the countryside. The Journal is a wonderful read. To call her the French Anne Frank does not do her justice. She is walking the streets, living daily with the restrictions of being Jewish during World War II. The pages of her discussion comparing the Jewish religion to the Christian religion are extremely thought provoking. I wonder what she would have written about had she survived the Shoah.
review 2: In 2002 Helene Berr’s niece Mariette Job donated Helene’s journal to The Archives of the Holocaust Memorial in Paris. It was published in France in 2008. David Bellos of Princeton University translated the journal into English for American publication. Helene Berr’s journal is an account of living in profound fear, day by day, in German occupied Paris during the Second World War. The journal covers two years recording what happened to the Jews under the Vichy government. Berr’s father was a WWI veteran and a prominent industrialist. Helene tells the how she felt the first day she had to wear the yellow star. She was a student of English at the Sorbonne, and a gifted violinist. Berr tells the story of her friends, neighbors and family being set off to the concentration camps and how the people rushed into their homes to steal everything. Helene was sent to Auschwitz on her 23 birthday and after 8 months she was moved to Bergen-Belsen. She survived in Bergen-Belsen for 5 months; she was beaten to death five days before the British liberated the camp. Her writing is simple and sometimes uses enchanting prose telling a story of monstrous events. Guila Clara Kessous a French actress did a great job narrating the book. less

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