Hello Bookish Buddies, and welcome to my review of To Look a Nazi in the Eye by Kathy Kacer! I was generously given an eARC through NetGalley from the publisher Second Story Press. To Look a Nazi in the Eye comes out on September 12th, so keep an eye out for it. If you’re not familiar with it, here is the Goodreads synopsis:
The true story of nineteen-year-old Jordana Lebowitz’s time at the trial of Oskar Groening, known as the bookkeeper of Auschwitz, a man charged with being complicit in the death of more than 300,000 Jews. A granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Jordana attended the trial. She realized that by witnessing history she gained the knowledge and legitimacy to be able to stand in the footsteps of the survivors.
Why I gave stars:
- 1 star for the importance and value of this story. I personally found Jordana’s journey of getting to this trial amazing and inspiring. I am so glad this book is being put out into the world, because I would never have known that this trial had happened had it not been for this book.
- 1 star for the characterization of Jordana. It was very clear to the reader how deeply affected Jordana was by the stories of the survivors that she heard, and how determined she is to fight for social justice and equality in today’s world.
- 1 star for the footnotes. Kacer includes footnotes for specific quotes, youtube videos of the hearing, Jordana’s blog, etc, making it easy and convenient for the reader to do their own research on the events of this trial. I personally watched one of the videos of Groening’s trial, and it was really off putting to know that the frail old man in the video had been complicit in the murder of hundreds of thousands.
- 1 star for the stories of the survivors shared in this account of the hearing. I personally love hearing stories of Holocaust survivors. I think these stories are really important to pass on because with the political climate in the world now, we need to be reminded that horrors like this are possible and preventable.
- 1 star for the grey area surrounding Groening himself. In the trial, he does acknowledge his crimes, but doesn’t express outright remorse. Even to me, a descendent of Jews that had to flee Russia and could have easily been driven into countries occupied by Germany during the Holocaust had they not fled to America, it doesn’t seem productive to put a frail old man who happened to be a former Nazi behind bars for the last years of his life.
- Minus 1 star for the lack of emotion in the storytelling. From page 1, you can easily tell that the trial was an emotional and life changing experience for Jordana, but I feel that the same emotions were not instilled in the reader. I do acknowledge that this is an incredibly difficult story to write second hand, but the most emotional parts of the story for me were Jordana’s blog entries, which leads me to believe that Jordana herself would have been a better writer for this book.
Overall, I gave this book a 4/5 stars and I would highly recommend picking it up, because it is very educational and an important piece of history we should all thoroughly learn about.
Are you interested in picking up To Look a Nazi in the Eye? If you’ve already read it, what did you think? Advertisements Share this:
