Gazing at the Stars: Memories of a Child Survivor (Eva Slonim, Black Inc.)

Eva Slonim was a 13-year-old girl when Nazis invaded her home in Bratislava in 1939 and tore apart her happy family and her life. Now, at the age of 83, Slonim looks back at her time in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with unadorned and startling honesty. While at Auschwitz, Eva and her younger sister Marta were part of Dr Josef Mengele’s brutal medical experiments and survived on little more than weak coffee and scraps of bread. Once liberated from the camp, they walked alone and hungry in search of their much-loved parents. While Slonim’s matter-of-fact voice makes Gazing at the Stars a brutal and difficult read, it is her determination to survive, to tell her story and to be reunited with her family—even while subject to torture, loneliness and starvation—that shines through in this book. This is an extraordinary memoir that is brimming with courage, hope and love in the face of evil. Slonim’s story stayed with me for days and is a must read for everyone.

Esther van Doornum is a freelance writer

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Category: Reviews