Overview
Winner of the National Jewish Book AwardAn extraordinary memoir of a small boy who spent his childhood in the Nazi death camps. Binjamin Wilkomirski was a child when the round-ups of Jews in Latvia began. His father was killed in front of him, he was separated from his family, and, perhaps three or four years old, he found himself in Majdanek death camp, surrounded by strangers. In piercingly simple scenes Wilkomirski gives us the "fragments" of his recollections, so that we too become small again and see this bewildering, horrifying world at child's eye-height. No adult interpretations intervene. From inside the mind of a little boy we too experience love and loss, terror and friendship, and the final arduous return to the "real" world. Beautifully written, with an indelible impact that makes this a book that is not read but experienced, Fragments is "a masterpiece" (Kirkus Reviews). Translated form the German by Carol Brown Janeway.
"This sunning and austerely written work is so profoundly moving, so morally important, and so free from literary artifice of any kind at all that I wonder if I even have the right to try to offer praise."—Jonathan Kozol, The Nation
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Majdanek extermination camp outside Lublin, Poland, was equally as murderous as Auschwitz, and nearly as large. It is curious that it is much less well known, but that is where the author spent about four years of his childhood, as an orphan, entering the camp around age three. His survival is a testament to his resilience. In sparest prose, the author describes such daily occurrences as starving babies who devour the ends of their own fingers. There are numerous Holocaust memoirs on the market, but this one is qualitatively different, for it attempts to introduce us to the worst of the Nazi horror through the mind of a child. Wilkomirski, today a musician living in Switzerland, worked with a psychiatrist to piece together these "fragments" of the story of his childhoodrecollections that, he claims, he has dredged up through the psychiatric process. Though presented as fact, this blackest night of the soul reads like fine literature. (Sept.)VOYA -
Fragments of memories of an early childhood spent in Nazi concentration camps have haunted Binjamin Wilkomirski throughout his life. This moving memoir provides a child's view of the bewildering life of the camps. Wilkomirski obtained an education in survival that allowed him to bear witness to these horrors. But this confusion in adjusting to life after the war, in a society that tried to silence his memories, left him no outlet to confront his past and find an answer to the question "why." In writing this book, he attempts to find that past and set himself free, while providing a valuable addition to the collection of Holocaust survivor literature. The strength of this book is its unusual child's-eye viewpoint; it is a beautifully written account of a truly horrifying experience. While the book is not a factual accounting of dates and events that would be suitable for research, it would be very valuable for supplementary reading in both social studies and literature classes. VOYA Codes: 5Q 3P S (Hard to imagine it being any better written, Will appeal with pushing, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).Library Journal
Wilkomirski, a well-known classical musician in Switzerland, was a small child when the roundups of Jews began in Poland after the German invasion of 1939. He vaguely remembers that his father was killed in front of him. Then he was separated from his mother and brothers. Eventually, at the age of three or four, Wilkomirski found himself in the Majdanek death camp outside Lublin. Here young Benjamin learned to survive on his own while surrounded by strangers. In Majdanek he witnessed every Nazi depravity. Owing to his age he had a very small vocabulary, which was further reduced to understanding whatever was needed to survive. This memoir illustrates the horror and sadness that this small child went through and the terrible loss of family, heritage, and a normal childhood. Written from "fragments" of childhood memories, it conveys the feeling of a child speaking with no adult interpretations. It is helpful to have a brief knowledge of the Holocaust and the death camps to be familiar with events the writer refers to. A powerful book; strongly recommended for Holocaust collections.Mary F. Salony, West Virginia Northern Community Coll. Lib., WheelingBooknews
Wilkomirski, a Latvian Jew, pieces together fragmentary memories of his childhood spent in the Nazi death camp of Majdanek, where he was taken after witnessing his father being killed and being separated from his family. Originally published in Germany by "Judischer Verlag im Suhrkamp Verlag", Frankfurt am Main, 1995. 5x8.5<">. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.George Cohen
Wilkomirski says his earliest memory is that of being yanked from a hiding place by Latvian militia and watching his father squashed to death by a truck the winter of 1939 in Riga. He was three or four years old. He describes hiding in a farmhouse, being separated from his brothers, and riding in a packed cattle car to Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin, Poland. Wilkomirski suffers from hunger and thirst; he is beaten and lives in filth. Lice, other insects, and rats gnaw at his frail body. There's a second torturous train ride to another camp, where he is hidden under a pile of rags by women; then a forced march in the bitter cold. Eventually, he is taken from an orphanage in Krakow to Switzerland, where he is adopted; but it is years before he can overcome his fears of the camps. These fragments of memories offer a picture of the unbelievable horror that was the Holocaust.Kirkus Reviews
At once horrifying in its details and beautiful in its simple, elegant prose, this Holocaust survivor's narrative is a small masterpiece.Wilkomirski's memoir is the result of his efforts to recover, with the help of a psychiatrist, hitherto repressed memories of a childhood spent in concentration camps. The book begins with his earliest memories of family life in Poland, when he was a toddler. As the title suggests, the recollections he has managed to salvage truly are fragments, ranging from the vague (how many brothers did Binjamin have?) to the gruesomely specific (the brutal murder of Wilkomirski's father in his tiny son's presence). The very young boy (he is three, perhaps four years old) is led away by a woman who promises to take him to a place with the lilting name of Majdanek. It was, of course, a a concentration camp. There, with the aid of benevolent strangers, he learns how to endure, albeit at the cost of a shattered soul. At a Polish orphanage after the war, Wilkomirski, his family gone, is again led away by a woman—one who promises him a better life in beautiful Switzerland. Meanwhile, young Binjamin still partially yearns for the familiar world of the camps, the only world he knows. Wilkomirski's narrative style blends the child's viewpoint with the mature understanding of the adult, unsentimentally recreating situations with arresting poignancy. Thrust into the cozy, comfortable Swiss way of life, the author is haunted by fears of betrayal. Has he betrayed his mother by calling another woman "mother"? Has he betrayed those who perished by living among the enemy, those "who live in whole houses and who don't wear striped shirts"?
Considering the high literary quality of this book, its admirers will no doubt lock horns with critics of the "recovered memory syndrome." Wilkomirski's voice is brave and lyrical, and his memoir is a piercing window onto the past.