Product Description

Ruth Kluger is one of the child-survivors of the Holocaust. In 1942, at the age of eleven, she was deported to the Nazi 'family camp' Theresienstadt with her mother. "Landscape Of Memory" is the story of Ruth's life. Of a childhood spent in the Nazi camps and her refusal to forget the past as an adult in America. 'It is not in our power to forgive: memory does that for us,' says Kluger. Not erasing a single detail, not even the inconvenient ones, she writes frankly about the troubled relationship with her mother even through their years of internment, and of her determination not to forgive and absolve the past. It is this memory, pure and harsh, that makes Kluger's memoir so unforgettable.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #186577 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'This is a work of shocking revelation ... This book is a fascinating study of the way one child's life was ripped into shreds by the Shoah. It is as important as The Diary of Anne Frank - and equally unforgettable' Independent 'Brilliant ... it is wise, witty, blunt, brutally honest and unsentimental, and as moving as only the naked personal truth, and its bold razor-sharp analysis, can be' Guardian

Guardian
‘Wise, witty, blunt, brutally honest and unsentimental, and as moving as only the naked personal truth can be’

Financial Times
‘A stimulating and individual work … this is a book that opens the mind as well as the eyes’

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
This book is not going to tell you much about the Holocaust - it focuses on the thoughts and feelings of the author. This is fine in its place, but it soon gets noticable that these responses are out of context when the details are missing, and they are often passed over or a comment made that enough has been written elsewhere. I am not reading "elsewhere" and would have preferred more details here, in the book that I am reading. I would recommend "I have lived a thousand years" or "Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chamber" for books that will inspire you and teach you about the atrocities of the holocaust.

A large section of this book is not focused during the holocaust - it talks about life afterwards and the rest of the author's life so far. Again this is all fine, but not what I was expecting when I purchased this book.

Superb writing - not to be missed
I wasn't surprised to learn after reading this book that Ruth Kluger is a professor of literature. She has written a brilliant and intelligent piece of literature that is much more than a holocaust diary. Kluger writes about "her" holocaust, the events that she experienced as a child and manages to show us a different perception of the experience. (Beware - those who morbidly read it, looking only for shocking horrific descriptions of nazi attrocities will be disappointed.) Ruth Kluger's book is about herself, about her life and mostly about her complicated relationship with her mother and of this she writes openly and with astounding honesty and intellgence.

I cannot praise this book or its author enough. I picked it up on a whim, and literally could not put it down. I believe it is one of the first books that I have ever read cover to cover without stopping - totally compulsive.

What an amazing lady! You MUST read this book. Her writing is superb.