Rate this book

Out Of The Depths: The Story Of A Child Of Buchenwald Who Returned Home At Last (2011)

by Israel Meir Lau(Favorite Author)

4.33 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

140278631X (ISBN13: 9781402786310)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Sterling Publishing

review 1: This is a great read. I have listened to it through Audible.com and love the introduction read by the Rabbi himself. Beautifully told, poignant, very moving and powerful. I thought I'd read enough about the horrors of the Nazi era but this is an important book. It is a wonderful story telling how the little boy was saved through the worst of concentration camps, Buchenwald, and how love of a Russian man and others, including his brother Naphtali ensured that the boy survived against all odds. That he went on to become the most important Rabbi of his time in the world shows that miracles, however you describe them, still happen. Such a lesson in faith. How people hold on to their faith during such terrible times is so hard to understand yet to see also that faith in a... more loving God was the thing that kept insanity at bay.Great read!
review 2: The experiences of Rabbi Lau during the holocaust before he was 8 years old and how he came out was emotional and powerful reading including odd stories that come up during his life afterwards told by others about him and his family that he had no recollection or no knowledge of. However this is only a fraction of the book. His brother especially and others who helped him not just during the holocaust but bringing him up and supporting him afterwards are heroes. The book gives a strong message for remembrance and that you have a choice in life how to live it no matter what has been in the past and not to let Hitler win spiritually as well as physically in killing jews. Lau went through some horrific mind-numbing experiences but he had an amazingly positive and assertive attitude and was fortunate in having a lot of support once he got out.I didn't give it 5 stars because there was a lot of confusing name-dropping in the yeshiva world which I thought was unnecessary and the details of all his meetings with dignitaries although interesting to read seemed sometimes like an almost self-congratulatory political memoir. I admire and respect Lau immensely even more after reading this book. I am glad he gave credit to others where it was due. One incident though grated on me: he's talking to a rabbi whose daughter he wishes to marry and the rabbi has done lots of research on Lau including talking to his teachers, mentors and peers but he is concerned that Lau is an orphan and how this will affect bringing up a family of his own since he has little experience of a family with parents himself. At the end of the meeting the rabbi gives his blessing and they get married later. What bugs me is that Lau *did* have a happy and stable family experience for 5 years with his aunt and uncle after he arrived in Israel and before he went to yeshiva ie between 8 and 13 years and he went and visited them for years afterwards for shabbat but he makes no mention of this to his future father-in-law in this conversation and that bugged me. less

Download links for: Out of the Depths: The Story of a Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home at Last

Advertising