Fragments of Isabella: A Memoir of Auschwitz

by Isabella Leitner

Book Overview

The deeply moving true account of a young Jewish woman's imprisonment at the Auschwitz death camp In 1944, on the morning of her twenty-third birthday, Isabella Leitner and her family were deported to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0690017790
• ISBN13: 9780690017793
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Crowell
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

In a way more haunting than the updated combined volume

This book is slimmer than the volume which came out in 1994, combining and somewhat updating this and the sequel 'Saving the Fragments,' but in a way it has more of an emotional impact, even considering a lot of the powerful vignettes of Isabella and her by then two remaining sisters after the liberation are completely left out. Because it's so short, it has more room to leave a deeper emotional impact; it didn't really dawn on me until rather recently that this, the most powerful book I've ever read, offers up relatively little details about daily life in the camps or seemingly important events and rituals the then-four remaining sisters would have gone through, like mealtime, beatings, the superiors in their barracks, the type of "work" they were forced to do, and their boarding of and ride in the icy halftrack from Auschwitz to Birnbaumel in November 1944. We get some events that took place in both camps, but not, as in other Shoah memoirs, long detailed passages and chapters accounting for every day, week, or even month spent there. What has made this book so powerful to me over the years aren't the details but rather the truly touching and genuine bond between Isabella and her sisters, how they stayed alive and together for one another, because of one another, even when it would have been easier, particularly for the youngest remaining sister Regina (called "Rachel" in this book because she wouldn't let Isabella use her real name in print at the time), to go the way of the smoke. We don't even know the ages of the four sisters, which makes it harder to picture the full dynamics of this relationship (the oldest sister, the one who was caught during their eventual escape and never reunited with them, dying shortly after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, was actually almost 30 years old, I've since discovered). These are fragments in the truest sense of the word, which Isabella wrote on scraps of paper, in her native Hungarian, shortly after she'd arrived in the States in May of 1945, whenever the images and memories forced themselves to the forefront of her mind and she needed to get them out of her system, however temporarily. Although in the updated volume, this account is told in the present tense, which makes it seem even more gripping than when told in the past tense in this original book. There are also some passages in this original volume that were left out in the updated one, like how Isabella's mother, whose death she never stops mourning or thinking about, had taught her the very important lesson of listening to her heart and the small inner voice within her dictating what was right, as well as describing how her only brother, Philip, temporarily hid as his family, friends, and neighbors were being herded to the cattlecars, but reappeared a moment later, unwilling to desert his family and not share in their fate too. (Interestingly, I happened upon the ID cards the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's webpage has for Isabella, her moth

Deeper than Words

Although the length of this book is not great, the meaning behind each word is. Isabella Leitner, a Holocaust survivor, wrote this on her experiences in her life as a Jewish woman in Europe during WWII. Leitner was transported to a concentration camp. She writes many of her obstacles as if she were writing a journal. I liked this book, but is not the best I have ever read. What made me give it four stars was that it is true. The person who experienced this wrote it down. It makes me admire Leitner because she went back to this time and wrote about it on paper. I did not give it five stars because I felt I needed a deeper understanding of what I was reading. I would suggest that someone be about sixteen before they read it, unless they were very mature. I would not recommend this book to someone who likes things to be concise. This is best for a patient reader who searches for a deeper meaning. All together, Fragments of Isabella is a great book for the dedicated reader.

A Startling, personal account of the Holocaust

Isabella Leitner cannot forgive the German and Hungarian people for their silence during the atrocities that were perpetrated upon the Jews during the Holocaust. As a Jew living in Hungary, she wass ubjected to constant racial hatred by the townspeople and the sadistic behavior of the brutal Hungarian gendarmes. Isabella's family is thrown into a ghetto and forced to live in a small, confined area with many other families. When the SS men round up the Jews, Isabella's family is forced out on to the streets where her mother is severely beaten. Isabella's nightmare begins at this point. Isabella's father attempted to earn his family their freedom from the anti-Semitic Hungary but government officials impeded their release. At every juncture, the father was unable to secure his family's exit from Hungary. Isabella and her family feared for their lives because they knew that their Hungarian neighbors could not be trusted to protect them from the SS. In fact, Isabella believed that her neighbors "would be Hitler's willing accomplices" when the bell tolled for the Leitners. On May, 29, 1944, Isabella's worst fears were realized. The SS rounded up the Jews to take them to the camps as the Hungarian townspeople watched. These good people stood by as the Germans marched in and led many of their neighbors to their death. The Gentiles knew what Hitler and the SS were doing to the Jews, Isabella believes. The Gentiles felt acamaraderie, a oneness with Hitler, she says. Hitler exploited their hatred of the Jews and they remained silent while six million were sent to their death. Isabella lost her mother in the concentration camp. Her mother was too weak and frail to fight after the guards had beaten her during the round-up. Yet the Leitner girls formed a bond during their stay at Auschwitz. They kept each other alive and forced the others to fight against disease, lethargy, and the destruction of the soul. The concentration camps bonded them to each other and they maintained that bond throughout their lives. After spending time in the Auschwitz camp, the sisters were moved to Birnbaumel and then on to Prauschnitz, where the Jewish prisoners mingled withthe townspeople in this small town. Yet no town resident would help the Jews. They remained silent as the SS guards paraded them through the town. Isabella realizes many years later that "you will not find a single German who lived in Prauschnitz who ever saw a single one of us." These German people ignored the atrocities because (in their minds) the Jews were dirty animals who deserved extermination, she says. Leitner cannot forgive these people for ignoring the pleas of these prisoners. The Prauschnitz citizens allowed Isabella and her sisters to be tortured by the German guards. For Leitner, there is no forgiveness. Isabella lost her sister Cici during this time. When the sisterescaped from the unsuspecting guards, Cici was the only one to remain wit

Incredible true account of a girl's life in the Holocaust

This was the best account of life in a German concentration camp that I have ever read. Once I started reading it I could not put it down. The reader gets so ingrossed in the book that you not only feel for the characters, but you feel as if you are one of the characters. This book is a must read for any reader who enjoys Holocaust books, or a reader who is just looking for a book that won't let you put it down.