I Light a Candle

By Gena Turgel

Book Overview

Out of the ashes of the Nazi concentration camps came an extraordinary love story which caught the public's imagination at the end of World War II. This autobiography tells how the author survived the camps and met her husband, a sergeant working for British intelligence, when he arrived to round up the SS guards for interrogation. Norman Turgel, then a young man, was among the first to enter the camp on April 15, 1945, and like so many battle-hardened soldiers, was deeply shocked and angered by the human suffering and degradation he witnessed. Yet it was here, in the midst of the living evidence of the most terrible suffering that man has ever inflicted on his fellow human beings, that he fell in love at first sight. Gena, a young Polish Jewish inmate of the camp, who had experienced indescribable loss, hardship, and deprivation, was to survive and find happiness against all odds. This is Gena's story: the autobiography of a woman whose strength of spirit enabled her to keep her mother alive and thereby save herself. When Gena married Norman in Germany in October 1945 in a wedding dress made of British parachute silk, the British Army Rabbi proclaimed their love a symbol of hope after so much death. But, Gena still lights a candle in memory of her three brothers and two sisters who died in the Holocaust. And, while her own story has a happy ending, she can never forget.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0853033153
• ISBN13: 9780853033158
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: Vallentine Mitchell
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Moving and heart breaking...

I've studied so much on the second world war, seen so many documentries on concentration camps, and analysed so many films made about the life during Nazi Germany, I didn't think it would be possible for me to stomach anymore of it. Thus, when i came across Gena Turgel's autobiography on her life during Nazi Germany, I read the synopsis and seemed skeptical about whether or not to buy it. But it's title alone haunted me "I Light a Candle...". Being a sentimental and nostalgic reader, it continued to haunt me until I knew that I somehow had to read the book, now i regret not a minute of it. Hearing a person's real experience, first hand, is the other extreme of sitting in History class and making notes on what had happened from the textbooks. Finishing the book I felt almost as if I myself have known Mrs. Turgel, and respect her immensely...what she has gone through is heart breaking, her courage, her determination and her spirit has shown that...hence, making me repent for every single evil thing I have ever done to a single person. My heart ached and leapt and wept for all those who have been treated with completel injustice within this story. The feelings felt when reading Gena's account are undescribable, as there are no words effective enough to express the power of her words. The confusion. The Suspicions. The overwhelming, heart-stopping fear. The remorse. The melancholy. The forgetting. But most of all the power of forgiveness. The feeling of starting anew. I regret having to rate this book, as i feel that this is one that cannot be rated...it is a book of feeling, a test of one's empathy, conscience and forgiveness. dear reader, read it. And know the truth, i promise you no regrets.