I’ve finished my second book for this year. I had intended for it to be a light read after the previous book, but failed. I scrolled through my Goodreads list and stumbled on “The Devil’s Arithmetic” and didn’t remember what it was about, thought it sounded good, it’s fiction, so should be “light”. Wrong. It’s about the Holocaust.
I really appreciate reading about the Holocaust. Something about it just draws me in. I can’t get over how people blindly followed such horrible leadership to kill others for no reason, except they were different. Different in a specific way. Not like the Dutch, Swedes, etc. They were Jewish. There’s a lot to talk about there but I’ll just get to the book.
It was a short read and super easy. While it was fiction in the sense that the characters weren’t real, the story was very real.
You go through a period of time as a child in a concentration camp, living day in and day out. The author does a good job of painting the picture but not dragging through it. You see how young children grow up in a matter of minutes, their childhood stolen so quickly. You see adults who have lost control of the situation and don’t even know how it happened.
I really appreciated how the experience changed the main character and helped her to grow. It’s a lesson I feel a lot of people fail to see or learn when they are young and often struggle with when they’re older too. It’s a lesson that is important for not only the Holocaust but just growing with life. Learning and appreciating history from those older than us. Taking time to understand why we are who we are.
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