The Rest Is Memory

This is a really haunting book to read, it is so hard to believe that such depravity went on in this world for so long, this book brings to life the story of one young girl and her experience after being sent to Auschwitz. Fourteen year old Catholic Czeslawa lives in a small village in Poland with her Mother and Father, she is a typical young girl who is interested in a young boy who picks her up on his motorcycle for rides. Her life turns upside down when the Nazi's invade Poland and transports thousands and thousands of people to various places depending on how useful they may be to the German regime. Czeslawa and her family are sent to Auschwitz, her father is separated from them, her mom and her survive the initial selection process, are stripped of all their belongings, tattooed, have their hair shorn and photographed by another prisoner. It's this photo, that's on the book cover, that inspired the author to find out what happened to this young girl. Life in Auschwitz is hell, fed small portions of rotten food, worked for long hours, made to stand for hours on end, disease is rampant and guards are more likely to kill you for sport rather than help you. The author includes footnotes where she got her information, if you have read any books that have touched on the Holocaust then you are probably familiar with many of the acts the Nazis carried out against the people of Poland, some of them are mentioned. A very slim novel but I feel a very important one in the literature around WW2 and the Holocaust. I would highly recommend especially if you have an interest in that time period. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Liveright for the ARC.

I’ve read from Lily Tuck before and really gravitate to her spare, minimal writing style. That style is extremely effecting in this novel, which takes a fourteen year old Polish girl, Czeslawa, who died in Auschwitz, and imagines her life story. Tuck is pulling from an extremely limited knowledge base and she still manages to create a realistic portrait of a devastatingly short life. I feel like the spareness of the prose magnifies the subject and the writing. Every sentence has a meaning and a purpose. It feels wrong to say I loved a book about a subject as calamitous as the holocaust, but I will be thinking about this one for a long time.