Hearing a Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search for Identity

By Benjamin Hirsch

Same image on cover. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865546886
• ISBN13: 9780865546882
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Mercer Univ Pr
• Length: 235 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

A Holocaust Survivor's Story - A Child Separated From his Parents

There is something very special and moving in the telling of author Benjamin Hirsch's life story that is much deeper than just his own memoirs; it is like he is here to remind all of us about events that happened long ago. In his well written and inspirational book, "Hearing A Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search For Identity", he becomes another voice for the victims of the Nazi extermination camps. It is clear that his voice is needed in today's world that tries to forget, hide or worse yet--to deny the holocaust ever happened. Hirsch tells us about his childhood in Germany and how his father was arrested in his own home and taken away by the SS and put in a work camp. His mother sends off her older children--three boys and two girls to France to remain in hiding and eventually to find their way to America. His mother keeps her two youngest children with her so the family is broken apart in many ways and not just physically. The author finds out after the war that both his parents and his little sister and brother have been killed in the Nazi Extermination Camps. Hirsch ends up in Atlanta, Georgia joining the rest of his surviving siblings. He is raised in a supportive Jewish community but he is an orphan none the less and there is all the emotional pain and loss of not knowing what happened to his family. This story is heart wrenching even though the author himself understates the obvious emotions that must have troubled him in his youth or even today. The bulk of the book focuses on the author's U.S. Army experiences in Germany and his personal search for what happened to his family. In the course of discovering his family history, he reconnects with his Jewish roots and rediscovers his spiritual life. It is a touching account of a young man alone in Europe finding his old country of Germany. However, it is not a home coming since he remembers so little; having been just 6 years old when he was sent off by train before the out break of WWII. There are some touching moments of reconnections with others from his past in almost miraculous ways and he reunites with the French couple that took him into their home some man long years before. There is so much more that I wanted to know about this man and his life that he left closed or veiled for public reading; it is my hope that his next book takes us on an inner journey to learn more about this most interesting man who also designed memorials to Jewish holocaust victims. I found myself on a personal level with his story for two reasons. One reason is that I have a six year old grandson and wondered what life would be like if he was suddenly taken away and sent to another country never to see his parents or grandfather again. The other reason deals with my wonderful experiences in Atlanta in 1968 with an Army buddy from Fort Benning. He had relatives there and had asked me to join him for some Jewish holidays with them. I was accepted into their home and at their temple fo

A wonderful read

Fascinating story of a man with a quest. Not only is it interesting to try to understand the mindset of a holocaust survivor, but also paints a very real picture of what it was like to be in the US Army in the 1950's.

A well written contribution to Judaic & Holocaust studies.

In Hearing A Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor's Search For Identity, Benjamin Hirsch offers a riveting memoir that related how as a nine year old refugee he first arrived in 1941 at New York Harbor. He, along with his two older sisters and two older brothers, had been sent away from Frankfurt am Main, Germany, by his mother to avoid the holocaust that was descending on the Jewish communities throughout Nazi occupied Europe. During the years of the Korean War Hirsch was an American solider stationed in Germany, where he discovered the horrific fate of his parents and younger siblings. Hirsch writes with candor and vivid description, in introducing us to the life of his uncle Philipp Auerbach, who recorded German atrocities that are still denied today -- that soup was made from some of the bodies of the murdered Jews. Hearing A Different Drummer is an important, exceptionally well written contribution to 20th Century Judaic and Holocaust studies.

a Holocaust child's survival

A child escapes from Germany with 4 of his siblings and finds his way to America. This is his history including joining the army even though he is still a German citizen, and afterwards becoming a prize winning architect.