Book Review ~ Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz by Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren

Image result for Giants - The Dwarfs of Auschwitz by

The authors tell the story of the of the Ovitz family in a clear, well-researched, easy to read style. They provide an amazing amount of detail into the life of the family gleaned from public records, former neighbours, other Holocaust survivors, and Perla who is the youngest Ovitz daughter. The close-knit family, made up of seven siblings who are dwarves and three siblings who are not, formed an very successful troupe of entertainers who travelled throughout Central Europe.

Although they were able to avoid many round-ups of Jews, they finally ended in a cattle car headed for Auschwitz in 1944. Saved by Dr. Mengele's predilection for human anomolies, the family avoided the gas chambers. Mengele knew his new test subjects were very fragile and was careful to keep them alive for his enjoyment and for study.

While it is impossible to say that I enjoyed the book because of its time and place, it was definitely worth reading. The authors could have turned the family into heroes but instead kept the story real, sharing the family's strengths and well as some of their less favourable behaviours.

An excellent story of an extraodinary family . . . definitely worth reading.

Comments

A Taste of Canada ~ Fiddleheads

I do enjoy fiddleheads. They have a green bean-y, asparagus-like, pea-ish taste and they are just fun to look at. From Chateline Magazine: HOW-TO It’s Almost Fiddlehead Season! Here’s How To Cook This Springtime Veggie Properly Fiddleheads are a Canadian delicacy, but undercooking them can lead to food poisoning by Amy Grief Updated Apr 9, 2019 Fiddlehead season is short, so when you see the adorable green curlicues at your grocery store or farmers’ market, buy them while you can. Before chowing down on these little springtime delicacies, there’s a few things you should know first since fiddleheads can cause food poisoning if they’re not cooked properly. What are fiddleheads? These tightly curled coils are ostrich fern fronds. They start appearing in late April and early May in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and are usually found in forests, marshes and by rivers and streams. Taste-wise, fiddleheads, which are popular amongst food foragers, are often co

Week #2 Challenge: Paper . . . and I mean ALL of your paper.

Annual Organization Challenge Week #2 How did you make out with last week's challenge? Did you find your work table? Here's this week's challenge: Your challenge this week is to S.P.A.C.E. your paper - - and I mean ALL of your paper: cardstock, patterned paper, specialty papers, and all those SCRAPS! SORT: Bring all of your paper to one area. Sort it all into piles: KEEP, SELL, DONATE, TRASH PURGE: bag up, and assign a price to paper bundles that you want to SELL at a garage sale or online, and put the bags in the garage sale box. Throw out the TRASH pile. Bag up the DONATE pile and immediately make arrangements for drop-off/pick-up or put in your vehicle. ASSIGN: separate your paper into categories that make sense to you. For example, you may want to divide it simply into cardstock and patterned paper. If you have a huge stash of paper, you may want to divide it by colour, theme, or manufacturer. **Another way to sort your paper is in

Journal Prompt ~ One Thing You Do Really Well

Name one thing you do really well . . . One thing I do really well is solve crossword puzzles.

In My World

Search This Blog