Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Having had this in my hands cataloging it, I decided to read this book as it offered a very different perspective on WWII.

Eddie Jaku, a German Jew, was arrested and taken to the concentration camps in 1938.. Serving first in Buchenward and then later in Auschwitz, he was atrocities with his own eyes on a daily occurrence.. Having survived this, he has decided to live life with an optimistic outlook. He knew that those working in the camps didn't always do so by choice--they were suffering too. He wants to live with joy because others were lost and can't be here to live that joy.

Overall this was quite a harrowing tale on one end. You don't often get to read a survivor's story from someone who was in two of the most lauded concentration camps of WWII. It's amazing that not only did Eddie survive these camps, but also has lived such a full life afterwards.

I found myself almost, in my own realistic outlook, having a hard time believing the story and it's outlook in front of me. Is this real? Could someone who had lived through everything that Eddie had really be able to feel the way he did about life? And yet he truly seemed to. It's amazing.

Thank you for the arc. I appreciate it.

WOW!!!!! “The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor” by Eddie Jaku is a memoir that will change your soul if you read it. And I highly recommend that you do. Mr. Jaku turned 100 in 2020, has been married for 74 years, and calls himself the “happiest man on Earth”.

He was a Jewish teenager in Germany passing as a Gentile at an engineering school when World War II broke out. But was deported to Auschwitz when he went home to check on his family that he hadn’t heard from for a while one weekend.

From the book:

“I arrived home and found the house dark and locked up. My family had vanished. I wasn’t to know that they had gone into hiding, believing that I was safe and far away.

I still had my key, otherwise I would have had to sleep in the gutter. I opened my door, and there was my dachshund, Lulu. She immediately jumped up and licked my legs. She was happy, and so was I.

I was very worried about my family. It did not make sense to me that they would be gone in the middle of the night. But I was very tired and in my childhood bed after five years away. It did not seem possible that anything bad could happen to me there.

I lay awake, listening to far off noises in the street. I had no idea what was happening, that across the city, synagogues were burning. Eventually, exhausted, I fell asleep.

I awoke at 5 am to the sound of the door being kicked. Ten Nazis broke in, dragged me from bed and, I swear to you, they beat me half to death. My pyjamas were soon soaked with my blood. One took his bayonet, cut off my sleeve, and started to engrave a swastika in my arm. As he started cutting, my little dog Lulu jumped on him. I don’t know if she bit him or just scared him, but the Nazi let me go and then, using the bayonet at the end of his rifle, stabbed and killed my poor little dog, shouting, ‘Ein Juden Hund!’ Jewish Dog.

I thought, Eddie, this is your last day. Today, you’re going to die.

But they were not there to kill me, only to beat and humiliate me. After their first attack, they dragged me into the street and made me witness the destruction of our 200-year-old house, the home generations of my family had been raised in. In that moment, I lost my dignity, my freedom and my faith in humanity. I lost everything I lived for. I was reduced from a man to being nothing.

That night is now infamous as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, named for the shattered shards that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, homes and synagogues were looted and destroyed by the Brownshirts, the Nazi paramilitary force. The German authorities did nothing to stop it.

That night, atrocities were being committed by civilised Germans all over Leipzig, all over the country. Nearly every Jewish home and business in my city was vandalised, burned or otherwise destroyed, as were our synagogues. As were our people.

It wasn’t just Nazi soldiers and fascist thugs who turned against us. Ordinary citizens, our friends and neighbours since before I was born, joined in the violence and the looting. When the mob was done destroying property, they rounded up Jewish people – many of them young children – and threw them into the river that I used to skate on as a child. The ice was thin and the water freezing. Men and women I’d grown up with stood on the river-banks, spitting and jeering as people struggled.

‘Shoot them!’ they cried. ‘Shoot the Jewish dogs!’

What had happened to my German friends that they became murderers? How is it possible to create enemies from friends, to create such hate? Where was the Germany I had been so proud to be a part of, the country where I was born, the country of my ancestors? One day we were friends, neighbours, colleagues, and the next we were told we were sworn enemies.

When I think of those Germans relishing our pain, I want to ask them, ‘Have you got a soul? Have you got a heart?’ It was madness, in the true sense of the word – otherwise civilised people lost all ability to tell right from wrong. They committed terrible atrocities, and worse, they enjoyed it. They thought they were doing the right thing. And even those who could not fool themselves that we Jews were the enemy did nothing to stop the mob.”

I am a strong believer that history with all of its good periods and evil periods must be taught and remembered—and not forgotten. Otherwise humankind cannot learn from past mistakes. And the world cannot become a better place. And the gift of someone who lived and experienced an event personally giving us their first person account is priceless. They LIVED it. And a person with such an admirable attitude and character giving that first person account is inspiring reading.

Eddie survives unspeakable things during the war. He sees both good and bad in the people around him. But what is most compelling about his story is his choice of what attitude he would have no matter what—even when he has no control his life. And that life is hell on Earth in a concentration camp.

He survives with enormous odds against him, and chooses not to speak about his wartime experiences for most of his very long life after the war. Why? Because he determines that he will build a new happy life. And he does.

But in his old age, he realizes that he needs to be a witness to what he has experienced and lived through, and he starts sharing his story.

This book is a testament to how someone who chooses hope and happiness can triumph no matter what life throws at them. It is one of the most humbling and inspiring books I have ever read.

Here is how the book begins:

“MY DEAR NEW FRIEND.
I have lived for a century, and I know what it is to stare evil in the face. I have seen the very worst in mankind, the horrors of the death camps, the Nazi efforts to exterminate my life, and the lives of all my people.
But I now consider myself the happiest man on Earth.
Through all of my years I have learned this: life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful.
I will tell you my story. It is a sad one in parts, with great darkness and great sorrow. But it is a happy story in the end because happiness is something we can choose. It is up to you.
I will show you how.”

Thank you to the publisher Harper for making this book available to the American market and for sharing an Advanced Reader’s Copy with me, and to NetGalley. It was an honor and a privilege to review this memoir that was first published in America on May 4, 2021.

This book was heartbreakingly beautiful. There were times that I cried. I will highly recommend this memoir to anybody I talk to! Such a timely message and what a beautiful life he built out of such tragedy.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book!

Eddie Jaku, who recently celebrated his 101st birthday, calls himself "The Happiest Man on Earth." Eddie was born Abraham Salomon Jakubowicz in 1920, in Leipzig, Germany. His father, Isidore, had 7 siblings, and his mother, Lina, was one of thirteen children. Isidore, who had emigrated from Poland, was a proud and patriotic German. Eddie had a comfortable middle-class childhood in "one of the most cultured and wealthy cities in Europe." His good-hearted father taught him that "there is more pleasure in giving than in taking." Another gift that Isidore conferred on Eddie was an interest in mechanical engineering.

This memoir recounts what occurred when the Nazis came to power. Because he was Jewish, Eddie was ejected from the Leibnitz Gymnasium School. Isidore obtained false papers for his son, and Eddie subsequently left home and enrolled in a mechanical engineering college. He graduated in 1938. Unfortunately, the Jews would soon realize—to their horror—that the Nazis were preparing to tighten the noose around their necks.

In conversational, simple, yet eloquent prose, Jaku describes all that he and his loved ones did to evade the Germans. Since Eddie was a mechanical whiz, he was a valuable asset whom the Nazis put to work in their factories. Alas, most of his relatives and friends would not be as fortunate. We shudder as Eddie recounts his many traumatic experiences. Not only did he lose touch with his parents and most of his siblings, but he had to endure bitter cold and starvation; incarcerations in Buchenwald and Auschwitz; and more than one brush with death. Now an Australian citizen who has done many good deeds in the aftermath of the Holocaust, Eddie summarizes his core beliefs: "Every breath is a gift. Life is beautiful if you let it be. Happiness is in your hands." "For every cruel person in the world, there is a kind one." Some may dismiss these sayings as trite. However, those who accompany Eddie on this nerve-wracking but uplifting journey will grow to respect and appreciate the wisdom and grit of this insightful, courageous, and compassionate man.

I found Eddie’s story hard to put down. It’s a sad story as he was a prisoner in several concentration camps during the Holocaust. But he’s also a person who learned to hope again after despairing of life. Encouraging book.

I received this book from the publisher via net galley in exchange for an honest review. 3-1/2 stars.

The Happiest Man on Earth
The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor
by Eddie Jaku
Harper
You Like Them You Are Auto-Approved
Biographies & Memoirs | History | Self-Help
Pub Date 04 May 2021 | Archive Date 29 Jun 2021

A truly inspirational story. Eddie Jaku has a beautiful soul even after the horrors of Auschwitz. Thanks to Harper and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

5 star

A very beautiful soul is found in this inspirational story by Eddie Jaku. You turned some of the most horrendous times in history into a love story of life.
Like so many other Holocaust stories, the continuous violence and brutality portrayed is felt deeply in the heart and soul. Eddie's will to survive and his endearing friendship with Kurt gave him hope in the midst of an impossible net against survival.
When six million Jews perished at the hands of the most brutal in mankind's history, he showed us the importance of embracing life to its fullest.
With a kindred spirit, he endured 28 below temps, no blanket or cozy bed, no coat, a scant trace of shoes, and starvation at its worse. How they survived and why they survived is sometimes worse than dying. The description of the surroundings, the nauseating stench of decaying human life and the moral or ethical code from people living in fear is told through the eyes of a survivor. Even the loss of loved ones brings light to the emphasis we place on what is important, such as The Happiest Man on Earth wasn't achieved through wealth, but survival at is harshest.
Raised by a loving family, sacrifices had to be made. When their capture would be inevitable, they sent their son away to take on a new identity and receive an education. After receiving a college degree in mechanical engineering, it would prove to save his life 7 years inside a concentration camp.
This book casts life lessons that Eddie delivers in hope to inspire others.
What I found so profound was the many times fate was decided at the last minute by saving grace and unbelievable outcomes. Through the beatings, escapes, recaptures, imprisonments and barbarous acts by the enemy, Eddie found love and light in some of the kindest people.
The journey to his happiness will leave you flabbergasted and disheartened. I never get tired of their will to survive even when survival was at its cruelest.
Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a beautiful look at how even after going through some horrible circumstances; you can still make the most of life and live. Eddie Jaku survived some horrible things and still learned to see the joy and thrive in life. What an uplifting book!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This book was such a pleasure to read. Mr. Jaku experienced some of the worst circumstances in history.. He chose to thrive and live with joy instead of merely survive. This book is a great one to read along with Victor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning. HIs indomitable spirit shines through every page in the book. Highly recommended.

It’s impossible not to read this book in one sitting because Eddie Jaku immediately holds your heart with his cheerful outlook in spite of years spent in the unimaginable hell of Auschwitz. He recounts his life both before, during, and after the Holocaust, and his personal journey towards both physical and mental liberation. The only thing readers will be left with at the end of this novel is a longing to meet their new friend and thank him for the love and hope he gives each of us.

I read this book within a few hours. Mr. Eddie Jaku’s writing is inviting, engrossing, and deeply honest. His recounting of his early life is breathtaking. He lost his home, community, family. Suffered forced labor, intense cruelty, starvation, abuse, and yet tiny kindnesses, luck, and hope kept him alive.

Hope, again, saved Eddie post-war. In realizing the power of mindful choice, he freed himself from the torment of his past. He chose to teach others his own history, doing so with such character that Tedx and then the world took notice.

This is not a happy-go-lucky story. Eddie is recalling senseless brutalities in hopes of teaching how important our personal choices towards others are.

As more time separates us from the Holocaust, personal recalls like this are so important in reminding us how quick lapses in morality ripple into tsunamis. Regardless of what life gives us, everything we do and think is a choice. I loved this book.